


Honey and Vinegar

by cthchewy (pyrrhic_victoly)



Category: Good Omens - Neil Gaiman & Terry Pratchett, Homestuck
Genre: Alternate Universe - Fusion, Art, Blasphemy, Cthulhu Mythos, F/F, F/M, Footnotes, Ineffability, M/M, Paradox Space, curry lamb of god, jegus is the tech support on the computer of my life
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2014-07-16
Updated: 2016-03-29
Packaged: 2018-02-09 02:17:05
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 13
Words: 20,525
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1965171
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/pyrrhic_victoly/pseuds/cthchewy
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Crowley and Aziraphale are both saddled with apprentices, which seriously puts a crimp in their style (or lack thereof).  Sollux became a demon because of his anger at, of all things, the mistreatment of honeybees.  Eridan doesn't believe in angels despite being one himself.  </p><p>Lower Tadfield is now a mecca for witches, and the end is nigh (again).  Who's to stop the Woegothics from unleashing Satan upon the world?  That's right.  A crack team of two angels, two demons, and some kid who likes trashy romance novels.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Chapter 1

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This note is being put here retroactively while I'm dong some finishing touches on chapter 3. I wanted to write a lighthearted shippy thing, but then plot got in the way. :'(
> 
> Originally, I said in the summary that no knowledge of Homestuck is necessary in reading this fic. I still stand by that, but I've added/intend to add inside jokes that reference that series. So, w/o knowledge of Homestuck, things will be understandable but not as funny. It probably works the other way around, too.
> 
> IDK how to explain the setting, haha... The story takes place in the Good Omens world, which has been absorbed into Homestuck's multiversal paradox space framework, if that makes sense?

Anthony J. Crowley was not so much ambitious as he was, to use the modern lingo, a huge troll. In the years following the Apocalapse1 and Adam's Hard Reset on the Game Console of the Universe, Above and Below had returned to business as usual. This meant that Crowley had returned to business as usual - that is, feeding ducks in the park and racking up commendations for his clever use of trolling to bring to the surface the ugliest, most petulant sides of humanity.

One of his latest achievements of note was the creation of Twitter, and thus Twitter Flame Wars. Aziraphale had, as per their Arrangement, countered this by encouraging more people to post pictures of their pets doing silly things to brighten others' days. Crowley had then countered this counter by whispering to tabloids and celebrity rags that the public would like nothing more than to hear about the Kardashians at least once a day and twice on Saturdays2.

It was so easy to receive commendations in this age of excess. Hell's bureaucracy finally caught up to human credit card companies and began offering "Point Perks" for each human soul tarnished by a demon's misdeeds. Crowley had since gained over 300,000,000 points on his Satanic Express Platinum Hellcard, and the reward for this tier was an apprentice/slave. Slavery had been out of style for centuries, so Crowley opted for an apprentice. The process included filling out a 50 page matchmaking survey in triplicate, officially declaring his intent to acquire an apprentice and having this signed, stamped, sealed, signed again and notarized and finally apostilled, each step taking place in a different department for which there was a long queue, a dispassionate receptionist, and a set of increasingly incompetent managers who must be yelled at no less than three times in order to process something correctly. Hell's bureaucracy certainly had come a long way since Crowley had first had it implemented.

Crowley was now back in his flat, waiting to greet this young demon whom he would take under his wing. On one hand, he was looking forward to training a demon who would have some blessed _creativity_ for once. The denizens of Below tended to be nasty brutes with no concept of subtlety whatsoever, and spending a lot of time with said nasty brutes eventually sapped the younger demons of that wonderful human ingenuity they'd had in their previous lives. Crowley's apprentice, should he prove worthy, would be a triumphant rescue case. A new hope for young demonkind!

On the other hand, given that this was Below he was dealing with, they probably had in mind to stick him with someone… _difficult_.

Either way, a sharp first impression was of the utmost importance. Crowley himself was always sharp, so if there was any slack, it would be due to one of his plants.

"Listen up, you lot," he said as he brandished the spray bottle. "A _guest_ is stopping by today and you'd better be on your best behavior. If I so much as find a leaf--" He paused and spritzed a not-as-perky-as-could-be philodendron; it immediately shaped up. "--out of place, I'll cut you into _mulch_. Think about it before you try to disobey. You wouldn't want your friends to live out the rest of their lives on a bed of your remains, would you?"

The plants shivered in fear, each making an effort to green up as Crowley's gaze roamed over them. He spritzed them a few more times for good measure before sauntering off to sit on his chic leather sofa, legs crossed in a pose that exuded nonchalance and casual jerkassery on a level only found in briefcase-toting, richer-than-thou yuppies at Starbucks3.

With a wholly underwhelming pop and accompanying tiny plume of smoke, the guest arrived in Crowley's living room. It was a skinny demon who stumbled as he poofed in, unused as he was to his new corporation.

"Hey, is this the residence of a Mr Crawly?" the young demon asked. He - for the corporation appeared male - had a horrendous lisp that grated on Crowley's nerves. Worse even than being called Crawly was _Mithter_ Crawly.

"It's _Crowley_. Anthony J. Crowley." 

"Sure thing, Mr Crowley. Or would you prefer 'boss'?"

The lisping in both those titles was a daunting prospect. "Anthony, please."

"Anthony, okay. Pleasure to meet you and all that. I'm to be your new apprentice. Name's Sollux Captor."

"Er… Tholluckth or Sollux…" At the mortification on the other demon's face, he quickly corrected himself. "Right. The latter. Gotcha."

Crowley made a show of looking over his apprentice and tsking in mild annoyance at what he saw. The youngster was in a teenage body and was skinny to the point of appearing emaciated. His clothes were a wreck: a rumpled hoodie in an ugly mustard color and worn, mismatched sneakers, one red and one blue. He wore red and blue 3-D glasses even though they were nowhere near the cinema. This would not do. Crowley voiced his displeasure. "I specifically requested someone stylish."

Sollux poofed a handbook into existence, and along with it a copy of Crowley's matchmaking form. He flipped through them and said, "It says here on page six that you'd prefer an apprentice of like kind."

"Yes, like kind as in stylish, a cool cat, hip, fashionable, with it. A right flash bastard, just like me."

"Like kind as in alike in demon nomenclature. It's in the small print."

"Speak English to me, kid. No habla legalese. Or lisp."

"Fuck you. LISP is a perfectly good programming language."

"I don't speak nerd, either." The kid got points for wit and attitude. No points for being a nerd. 

Sollux poofed the books back out of existence. "It means you get stuck with me because we're both snakes. Or did you somehow manage to overlook this fan-fucking-tastic forked tongue of mine? Really convenient, that. Can't even say my own name most days."

"That somehow trumps all the other 50 pages of preferences I marked down?"

"Well, this is Hell you're dealing with."

"It's outrageous! The least they could do to reward their best field agent is with an actual reward."

"Stop being a whiny asshole. No one cares."

"Seriously, kid, who signed off on this?"

Sollux shrugged. "Hastur, Duke of Hell. He said something about having a grudge against you but he can't remember why."

Didn't it just figure.

\---

1Also variously known as the Nopocalypse, The End of the World (not!), The End of the World (psych!), and Armageddoff.  
2The Kardashians were an evil unto themselves, and one that Crowley had no hand in creating. He did, however, admire them for the ruthless efficiency in which they inspired low-level hatred in just about everyone, and he did not decline the commendation he was offered for their existence.  
3...ordering Iced Quad Venti Non-Fat Sugar-Free-Syrup Caramel Macchiatos with Extra Whip and Chocolate Sauce, the rich bastard equivalent of a Diet Coke with a Super Sized Big Mac meal at McD's. Humans outdid themselves every time.


	2. Chapter 2

Meanwhile, in a dusty Soho bookshop, the sign flipped to 'closed', the proprietor, one Mr Ezra Fell, was entertaining an old friend, one Colonel Jake Harley. Mr Fell had served tea, and the two got to talking as gentlemen do, about the weather and other such pleasantries, and then about Colonel Harley's family.

"Take a gander at this, old chap," Colonel Harley said, his salt and pepper mustache practically twitching with glee. "It's my Jadey, all grown up." He handed over a photo of a bright-eyed, buck-toothed young woman at her University commencement ceremony.

Mr Fell admired the photo and thought back to the days when little Jade Harley visited the bookstore with her grandfather. She was a pleasant girl who, unlike many other children her age, had never asked for comics or tried to stick chewing gum into the books when they thought no one was watching. "Oh my, your granddaughter has certainly grown into a lovely lass." 

Colonel Harley preened at the praise. "And smart as a whip, too! Physics, engineering, astronomy, divination, astroprojection - she does it all. That's mighty important for a witch of her caliber, especially in this day and age."

"Yes, of course. You must tell her to visit some time. I've many books of prophecy for her to borrow that she may find useful in honing her gift."

The conversation had, at this juncture, taken a turn for what an ordinary bystander would consider to be the absurd. However, Mr Ezra Fell was in fact Aziraphale, an angel of the Lord and former Guardian of the East Gate of Eden, and Colonel Harley had been dead for quite some time.1

In life, the good Colonel had been a regular patron of this very bookstore; not to purchase, but to sell ancient tomes he had come upon in his travels. He had never known that the owner of the store was anything other than a human who aged very, very gracefully. In death, the good Colonel ascended to Heaven and immediately descended again to be guardian angel to his beloved granddaughter. Being a low-level human-born angel, he was not granted permission for a corporeal body of his own and his spirit instead liked to flicker through various memories of what he thought he ought to look like.

Colonel Harley's spirit flickered just then, and in the place of the distinguished soldier was a young man of no more than twenty. "Before I forget," Jake said, "on my last trip Above, I overheard some of our fine brothers and sisters speaking of a new mentorship program, and I thought it might concern you."

"Is that so? Do go on, my dear."

"They said it was to pair some greenhorns with the most experienced members of our ranks. You know, to see that they learn something of what it's like to have those sorts of duties and whatnot. Seemed to me your name would be a natural shoe-in to have on the list of mentors, being that you've been on Earth the longest of anybody from, well, from anywhere."

Aziraphale's lips formed a moue in contemplation. "I'm not sure our superiors have the best impression of me. You know how they are about The Rules."

"Oh yes, yes, I agree. The senior members Up There can be so set in their ways. No sense of adventure, I say."

"Quite so. And as such, I fear they would be hesitant in allowing me to be mentor to impressionable young minds." He sounded regretful, but in truth, Aziraphale was not so keen on taking on any extra responsibilities. He had grown complacent after millenia of a similar lifestyle as Heaven's field agent. Day in, day out, he kept an eye on the humans and in a normal week had only the one supernatural visitor: Crowley, who shared his exact same job, but for the other side.

The thought of having another angel to converse with on a regular basis wasn't unpleasant, but Aziraphale was a bookish and rather introverted individual who valued his privacy. Having old friends such as Jake Harley drop by was wonderful, but it was so precisely because the occasions were sparse enough not to be wearying. He wouldn't know what to do if he were shadowed by a young angel all the time, especially if said young angel were to be a stickler for The Rules. Thankfully, Aziraphale thought, his reputation in Heaven wasn't good enough for this to happen.

Colonel Harley thought differently. "Pish posh! There are many of us lesser angels who admire you and believe you would be the most capable mentor, Mr Fell. I know for certain I heard your name mentioned. Why, perhaps a slew of soon-to-be-mentees asked for you by name!" He flickered into his thirties, his fifties, his eighties, and back into his late teens all in the course of this speech. His gung-ho, go-get-'em spirit remained the same throughout the ages, as did his buck-toothed grin.

While it was nice to see someone had such faith in him, Jake Harley's enthusiasm could be taken too far. His boundless optimism had the added effect of making him - if Aziraphale were to be entirely honest and perhaps a bit harsher with his words than he usually liked - objectively _stupid_. It was therefore a good rule of thumb to ignore most of what he said on any given day.

Aziraphale opted to nod along politely. Tea was sipped, scones were ingested, and that line of conversation was dropped before Jake could work himself up in a frenzy of "You should show them what's what! A good ol' bout of fisticuffs ought to put your snobby superiors in their place!"

It wasn't long before Colonel Harley received a summons from his granddaughter who, being a witch, could do those kinds of things. He flew off into the distance with one last dramatic "Tally ho!"

A fine man, Colonel Harley. Not the brightest flaming sword in the angelic arsenal, but a fine man indeed.

Now that his visitor had gone on his way, Aziraphale allowed himself to slouch a bit more comfortably. He didn't bother flipping the shop sign back to 'open' because, well, the less customers the better. Aziraphale magicked himself another pot of hot water and set about making a fresh cup of tea. There was a new author whose books he had been meaning to read, and now was the perfect time. With tea to his right and snacks to his left, Aziraphale materialized his copy of Complacency of the Learned and finally set about to read the tale of the Wizard Zazzerpan and his villainous charge, Calmasis.

He had gotten no further than the opening paragraph when his tea began to ripple without any outside force. The voice of the Voice of God came forth. "Have you considered acquiring an intern?" asked the Metatron. Being the Voice of God had many perks, and though being the Ears of God was not part of the job description, the Metatron had an uncanny ability to eavesdrop.

Aziraphale was at a loss not for the words themselves, but for things to sip as he got around to politely wording a reply. He settled for nibbling a chocolate biscuit. After a brief pause, he said to the teacup, "I thought it was a _mentorship_ program."

"It was, until Raziel threw a hissy fit over how _internship_ sounded much more professional," said the Metatron. "God doesn't care either way."

"Hmm," said Aziraphale.

There was a lull in the conversation until the Metatron picked back up. "Well, I suppose you're not going to bite. In that case, I'm here to inform you that you're to have an intern whether you like it or not."

Aziraphale sighed and bid farewell to his peaceful lifestyle. "But why me? If anything, I should think you'd want the young angels to be as little like me as possible." 

"Orders, you see. All the eldest among the Host, Seraphim and above, are to have interns." The Metatron paused as he often did when deciphering one of the Lord's messages. "I suppose there's no harm in you knowing. You'd find out soon enough after meeting your intern…"

"Yes?"

"There's been a switch. The intern you'll be getting, Eridan Ampora, has proven to be… _difficult_. All who've worked with him have sent him away. The Lord has told me to assign him as I see fit; a change of scenery will do him good."

"Ah. The Lord's ways are truly ineffable." What else was he to say to the knowledge that his intern was the reject? In any other case, Aziraphale would think, "Oh poor dear," but knowing how much patience angels usually had, it would have to be a real piece of work to frustrate them so.

"He's not a reject," the Metatron said as if he'd read Aziraphale's mind. "Not really. Uriel said he was very talented with wrath and smiting."

Oh, joy of joys. Even the Angel of Wrath had had a turn and gotten rid of young Mr Ampora. And to top it all off, he was good at _smiting_ of all things. Aziraphale hadn't done any smiting since… Er, since he had "lost" his flaming sword after the Garden of Eden.

"God does not play games with his creations," the Metatron said. Aziraphale recalled him saying that a couple decades ago while they danced the Apocalypso. The voice of the Voice of God had wavered in uncertainty then as it did now, which Aziraphale took to mean that God did, indeed, play games with his creations. Circuitous, paradoxical, ineffable games.

The teacup rippled one last time and went silent.

The tea was cold. A shame, such a waste of good darjeeling.

Aziraphale sighed again, wondering if he should attempt to tidy up the shop.

In the next instant, there was a young man sitting in the seat occupied by Colonel Harley a few minutes ago. He arrived with no fanfare - no sound, no sparkles, not even a shaft of light. Aziraphale could see he was immaculately groomed from head to toe to neatly folded wings. He wore a gray suit with purple pinstripes, sharply cut and almost reminiscent of a certain Demon. There was a matching purple streak in his slicked back hair, styled in a way that was also almost reminiscent of a certain Demon.2

"Mr Ampora, I presume?"

The younger angel crossed his arms and glared. He spoke with a wavy accent. "You ain't gonna break me."

\---

1Contrary to the battledress his spirit still liked to wear at times, Colonel Harley did not die in WWII. He survived past the war and continued to have a long and fulfilling life of adventure. He became an amateur archeologist and made many trips to explore the ruins of ancient civilizations, even going so far as to eventually forsake Britain - and indeed the entirety of civilization - for a deserted island in the middle of the Pacific Ocean. Then, in his last years, he was called back by his children who feared he was going senile. They hired a live-in nurse who was tragically uninformed as to the Colonel's severe peanut allergy.  
2In a small corner of Aziraphale's mind - one that was borne of too many Mills and Boon paperbacks3 and which would be locked away as soon as it surfaced - he wondered if Eridan Ampora wouldn't be the spitting image of his and Crowley's child if they had ever made that much of an effort.  
3When one is a bookworm and has lived for millennia, there are times one suffers from a severe drought of good new reading material. And when one is a bookshop owner, there are times one is asked by potential customers if there are contemporary romance novels for sale. Then, assuming one is a curious individual, one will read said contemporary romance novels one is being requested to stock. That will have been a mistake.


	3. Chapter 3

The penthouse flat was a veritable jungle in places. Crowley had lush foliage growing on most every surface in certain rooms. The sunroom in particular no longer let in any sun.

However, it was more of a jungle now than ever, and this was an unwelcome change. There were... _flowers_. Flowers were so soft and sweet. Angelic, even. They were utterly unacceptable in a demon's home, and yet he had been entrenched in a battle with those messy pollen sacks for days now.

It began when Crowley invited that lisping geek into his home. Their interactions that first night had been limited to Crowley saying, "All right, I'm going to bed. Your room is down the hall. Don't touch my things." The next morning, his army of ficuses had been infiltrated by a single cheery yellow plumeria. Crowley immediately tossed it in the rubbish bin outside and went to yell at his wayward apprentice but, when he passed by the spot where the plumeria had been, he was greeted with _two_ orchids. Demons are petty, spiteful beings. A battle of constant one-upmanship was born that day. 

From then on, the flowers had been steadily marching through his home, a nigh unstoppable force of scent and color. Blooming tropical houseplants such as orchids and plumerias - which were tolerable in the right conditions - soon gave way to jasmine, roses, lavender, daisies. Petal-dropping _menaces_ is what they were. And where was said wayward apprentice? After Crowley had threatened one of his precious begonias with a blowtorch, he had fled to a new base of operations. Sollux now commandeered the sunroom and had barricaded the doors to his new fort. He had been in there for two days.

Crowley pounded on the door. "Come out from there, you traitorous lout!"

"No," said Sollux, his petulant voice muffled by the door.

"This is _my_ home and your disrespect will not be tolerated!" _You show some respect for your father this instant, young man!_ If Crowley was to sound any more parental, he was going to discorporate himself by doing a fancy pirouette onto the Go-- Sata-- Manchester-blessed M25 London Orbital Motorway.

"Screw you, AJ. You're just going to find some shitty reason to send me back to Hell. I'm not stupid and I'm _not_ going back there."

Crowley considered playing nice, tempting him out with dinner at the Ritz or whatever it was that moody teenagers liked. Greasy pizza, maybe. He also considered teleporting into the sunroom, but he wasn't one for physical fights if he could help it.

"You better not have messed with my plants, punk."

"They're fine, jeez. I'm taking care of them." _Along with their new flowery friends_ went unspoken.

Crowley was about to say something biting about Sollux's inability to care for himself, but he heard something just then, from beyond the doors. A hum of sorts, but not like a computer or any other piece of technology. It was a low, droning... buzz.

"Sollux...? Sollux, what is that buzzing sound? It had better not be what it sounds like."

"Well, what's it sound like, dumbass?"

"It sounds like--"

"Because it's--"

"Bees," they said in unison.

Crowley slowly spun around on his heel. He began walking to the front door, his strides getting faster as he went until he was nearly sprinting out of the apartment building. The door was hastily magicked shut; Crowley raced to his beloved Bentley.

He needed a drive. And possibly a visit to a certain angel. They had holy water and things of that nature. Great demon exterminators, angels were. Perhaps Aziraphale could be convinced to fumigate Crowley's flat with his grace. Flush out demonic bees and all that.

\---

Aziraphale's interactions with his charge were less volatile, owing not to the fact that angels as a whole were morally superior to demons (they weren't), but because Aziraphale was not one for escalation. For example, when Eridan had said, "You ain't gonna break me," Aziraphale had responded, "Of course not, my dear. I'd much prefer you in one piece."

This was not to say that things were going well.

The bookshop magically expanded to accommodate one more person; Eridan spent most of his time sulking in his room. When he wasn't there, he was sulking in the corner by the military and history books, or he was nagging about how the bookshop needed to be modernized and Aziraphale needed to burn his wardrobe to rid himself of the Tartan Plague. 

"What's wrong with tartan?"

"Everything's wrong with tartan. You should let me give you a makeover. I'll make you _fierce_."

Aziraphale was fine with this… except that he wasn't. He had thought for a while that he could be fine with this since neither angel was particularly fond of The Rules, and since Eridan also liked books1. There was no reason they couldn't get along… It's just that he hadn't been expecting his intern to break quite so _many_ of The Rules; perhaps even all of them!

To put it simply, Eridan was a militant atheist. 

Aziraphale had met many atheists and liked many of them, too. He firmly believed that humans were innately good, and that just being an atheist did not mean one was on a rocket slide to Below. Atheists came in all shapes and sizes; they were tall and short, fat and thin, lechers and prudes, smart, stupid, and everything in between. Some were curmudgeonly, angry with their lot in life and only using their atheism as an excuse to lash out at the world. And yet others were the most joyous people Aziraphale had ever encountered, who had a wondrous sense of awe and humility at the smallest and largest the universe had to offer. They were just _human_ , which encompassed all of these things and more.

Angels, however, were by definition _not_ atheist. Except Eridan, somehow. This called into question just how he had become an angel in the first place, and also what it meant to be an angel at all. What exactly was the essence of an angel if not having Faith in the Creator? It made sense now, why the others had been so quick to foist Eridan off onto Aziraphale. Heaven didn't take well to challengers to the status quo.

Nonetheless, Aziraphale tried his best to be a gracious mentor. Unfortunately, his attempts at serious conversation tended to end up like this:

"So Uriel took you smiting? How was that?"

"Okay, I guess. I took down a coupla so-called demons who were trying to possess some poor chump. Then this asshole angel pops up outta nowhere, tells me now's a great time to hop on down to proselytize to the guy I just saved, and I'm like, 'Fuck you, what's religion gotta do with this?' so we get into an argument and I smite him, too." 

"You smote an _angel_."

"With _science_." 2

\---

The Bentley sped into Soho in record time, Aretha Franklin's 'Princes of the Universe' blaring from the stereo. It came to a screeching stop before Aziraphale's bookshop. Crowley practically vaulted from his seat and through the front door in one continuous, sinuous motion.

"Angel!" he called. "I need a favor!"

Crowley was still shaken from the revelation that bees had invaded his flat; so shaken that he assumed there were no others in the shop when he detected no human presence. It was an unpleasant surprise, then, when he discovered that the sole angelic being in the shop was not his Angel, but some hipster douche. Crowley's fists clenched and shook at the prospect of confrontation when the figure came out from the back room, though he managed to keep his face impassive save for a quirk of the brow above his shades.

"Mr Fell's out for a walk," the other angel said. "He'll be back in a sec."

"And who are you supposed to be?"

Douchey-looking angel shrugged. "His intern or some such bullshit."

"...And you realize you're an angel."

"So they tell me. Angels and magic are fake, though. It's all just science we don't understand yet."

Crowley rolled his eyes behind his shades. "Let me reword that. You're currently an entity that is commonly referred to as an angel."

" _Yes_. I got wings, don't I?"

"Right. So you're an angel, and you know that I'm a demon." Crowley gestured between the two of them. "Smiting? Righteous holy fire?"

Douchey angel narrowed his eyes. "Demons are fake too."

"Are you kidding me. We're really going to play this semantics game?"

"I ain't saying _you_ aren't real, just that angels are bullshit and demons are bullshit, so what's it matter that both of us are members of bullshit factions that're supposed to hate each other when bullshit plus bullshit is still fucking _bullshit_."

Crowley was impressed. Both his eyebrows rose, and he grinned.

The angel continued on with his rant. "Shits're just piling up one on top a the other. Good and evil are subjective things! I sure didn't sign up for this, and I don't like it that everyone suddenly wants me to be some holy warrior on account of I died and sprouted wings." He paused for a second. "I'd smite you if you were a hippie, though. Fuck hippies."

Bloody fucking yes. "I like you, kid."

\---

1He was particularly fond of dense tomes of some historical importance; particularly those that could be weaponized either through their contents, i.e. Sun Tzu's The Art of War, or their sheer physical heft, i.e. Jonathan Sassacre's Heartening Text of Scientific Sensibility and Theoretical Postulates, a 50,000 page monstrosity that was not heartening at all. One might, as a matter of fact, call it _daunting_.  
2Aziraphale got the feeling that Eridan did not actually know what science was, nor did he know that it wasn't a thing that could be weaponized in such a way. Then again, he seemed to be able to _make_ things be what he wanted them to be through sheer force of will. This was in accordance with the reality-bending way of powerful supernatural beings beyond the warp and weft of the laws of the universe and also small children playing make-believe.


	4. A Brief History of Cultural Diversity (and Witches) in Lower Tadfield

The village of Lower Tadfield was quintessentially English, not least of all because it had been the childhood home of Adam Young, the infernal antichrist, who was an extremely powerful supernatural being beyond the warp and weft of the laws of the universe, and who had also been a young child playing make-believe when he had deemed it to be so. Lower Tadfield had been an extension of Adam's aura when he had been a boy, and remained so in his adulthood despite his efforts to keep his powers under control1. When Adam grew up, so did Lower Tadfield.

For years, while the ethnic makeup of the UK naturally changed, in Lower Tadfield they remained the same: everyone was 100% White Anglo-Saxon2. Adam was not any more racist than the average English child, but he was a product of the media, and the media at that time presented all the heroes and the important people in England, especially in the suburbs and countryside, as whiter than white bread with the crusts cut off.3

Eventually, Adam and the Them left for college or vocational training. They dropped Wensleydale off at the Imperial College and it was then that Adam first stepped onto a busy London street and saw an England he did not recognize. "It's because it's London," he thought, because London got invaded by extraterrestrials every once in a while. In the way that Godzilla attacked only Tokyo on a regular basis and not, say, a fishing village in Hokkaido, brown people in England were only to be found in London and not in a little town like Lower Tadfield. That was that, and Adam was content with keeping the worlds separate.

Adam and Pepper were not as academically inclined as Wensley (and Brian even less so - he went to train as a policeman), and so found themselves in attendance at the Upper Tadfield Community College. Pepper made other friends, some of whom came from little towns on the other side of Upper Tadfield, and when she visited them, she noticed that, small as they were, their towns had Blacks and Asians and Irish and Continental Europeans, too. Having known about Adam's abilities for a long time, she grew suspicious.

"How come Lower Tadfield doesn't have any cultural diversity?" she asked one day. "Why is it that every time someone moves out, the family that moves in is exactly the same?"

"How should I know? It seems to me," Adam said sagely, "It seems to me that a certain type of people like living in Lower Tadfield."

Pepper put her hands on her hips and looked at him in the way that girlfriends do when their boyfriends are being stupid. "And it's nothing to do with you and the type of people _you_ think would like it here?"

This gave Adam pause. He breathed in for a beat and thought about London and Upper Tadfield and those other places that were outside of his immediate sphere of influence, and he said, "You know Pep, I reckon it very well could be."

Adam had thought since before he came of age that it wasn't right for him to shape the world however he wanted it. For one, that was how a child would go about doing things, and Adam was not a child any longer. Even though it was hard and sometimes he didn't want to, adults had to deal with the world as it really was. It also wasn't fun if people behaved only in the ways he thought they should, because then he would be missing out on all the ideas they could have come up with on their own. Adam's meddling produced only things that Adam could have thought up, and while he was an imaginative person, it wasn't the same as enjoying the fruits of the unfettered imaginations of millions of other creative types.

Reining his influence back was hard, though. He'd already squashed his aura as compact as he could without having to devote constant attention to it, and besides, he didn't want to completely change the quaint character of Lower Tadfield into a London borough; that would have been too much. So, Adam thought, why didn't he just change his mind about the types of people who might like to buy a house here? Why didn't he just change his mind about what kinds of people could be considered very English?

In having that thought, Adam had already changed his mind, and thus reality. And that was the beginning of Lower Tadfield's diversification.

A Tandoori opened up next to the pub, followed by a Chinese take-away soon after. Other ethnicities took up residence in the years that followed. The original residents of Lower Tadfield reacted to the change in demographics in a very suburban way. That is, if their new neighbors' children appeared properly fed and clothed, and if their lawns were neatly trimmed, then they were welcome.4

An oversight in Adam's part was that, in removing the restrictions on what sorts of people were allowed to move in, he also opened the gate to witches.

Anathema Device-Pulsifer, being the town's original witch, was very much aware of this change. Lower Tadfield was, to a witch, an infinite well of magical energies. Adam was the focal point, but his constant presence throughout the years had imbued the town itself with a life of its own. Adam's cast-off energies had become the _genius loci_ of Lower Tadfield, and would remain long after his physical life had passed.

With the town's protective spirit no longer preventing other witches from entering, they flooded in. This issue was never brought up to Adam since most of the witches meant no harm. Many of them weren't even powerful enough to _know_ they were witches; one day they just found themselves having the intense urge to visit… somewhere, threw a tack on a map blindfolded, had it magically land on Lower Tadfield, and went. The ones who _did_ mean harm were automatically rebuffed by one of Adam's myriad other protective barriers, or else by Anathema herself, because _someone_ had to be vigilant, and not in the way the now-defunct Witchfinder Army was. Nevertheless, Lower Tadfield now boasted the highest per capita instances of witchcraft in all of England, if not the world.

Anathema had never joined a coven despite the wealth of opportunities available to her. She was, however, fond of the three-member coven next door; Jade Harley in particular. Jade, like Anathema, was a very sensible witch. She believed in things like organic gardening, fixing her own car, and always carrying at least five communications devices on her at all times: a phone, a laptop, a pager, another phone, and a scrying mirror, _at least_.

The other members of the coven consisted of Feferi Peixes, Jade's school friend, and Damara Megido, who flew in from halfway across the globe to show up at their doorstep one day and say, "Space, Time, Life. Three, is destiny."

And none of the three were white. Lower Tadfield had certainly come a long way.

\---

1Sometimes he leaked. Pepper joked that they ought to make maxi pads for that.  
2Not exactly Protestant, however.  
3[Even in 2011 this was going on.](http://www.independent.co.uk/news/uk/this-britain/is-the-real-midsomer-murders-really-so-white-2242914.html) "We just don't have ethnic minorities involved," said a TV producer. "It wouldn't be the English village with them. It just wouldn't work." He had a point in that the English countryside is, by and large, still very much a white majority. Though nowadays even the residents of rural England would say that it's just not England without a local curry house.  
4The way suburbanites size up new neighbors can be illustrated using an accumulative points system where the goal is to score at least 100 points in order to be deemed acceptable company. Some point values are, for example: being non-Christian -20 points, not speaking English -30 points, having an immaculate lawn +50 points. It should be noted that +50 is the highest amount of points one can earn for a single quality, and only proper lawncare offers this point value.


	5. Chapter 5

Aziraphale had gone on a walk to clear his head. He could have just magicked his confusion away, but he'd "gone native", as other angels often said of him. He'd gotten into the habit of doing many things the human way. The walk served a dual purpose, as it allowed him to bring back lunch from his favorite curry restaurant. Yes, eating was also a "native" thing to do, but they had such nice vindaloo.

Manning the cash register today was one Karkat Vantas, basement-dwelling geek and aspiring romance novelist. Karkat had long ago perfected an expression that was not so much ennui as "fed up with the world's continuous bullshit", and it was this look which he wore as he stared dispassionately at Aziraphale while the angel slowly perused the lunch menu.

"Relationship problems?"

"I'm sorry, what?" 

"Your boyfriend giving you any grief? Guy's kind of a prick." 

"Oh, no! Just… regular problems, if you will."

Karkat shrugged, which was quite a feat considering that he had his arms crossed above the counter and his head was resting on his hands. Aziraphale supposed it was Karkat's way of appearing sagely and non-threatening, inviting others to unleash their woes upon him. However, the effect was ruined by Karkat's being Karkat, which was, as Crowley often put it, a shouty little bastard1.

"Er, I'll have--"

"The usual. I know."

"Oh, well, yes. I'll have that, if you don't mind."

Karkat made no move to write down the order. Aziraphale glanced between the paper menu and the pad that Karkat most definitely was not using to write down any orders.

"Ahem." Aziraphale tried once more. "I'll have the usual."

Karkat glanced toward the swinging door to the kitchen. "Yeah, chef's on it. I sent in your order when I saw you coming down the street."

"Oh, that's wonderful! Thank you very much." What a pleasant surprise, Aziraphale thought. And Crowley said chivalry was dead!

"No prob. It'll be out in a sec _if a certain lardass would get a move on it_!"

"Go to medical school!" the chef shouted from inside the kitchen. 

Karkat responded without even looking back, "Shut up and make the goddamned curry, dad!"

Ah, yes. The Vantas family was lively as usual. Crowley was of the opinion that the rage-filled shouting infused an extra zest to the food; Aziraphale rather thought it was the undercurrent of genuine caring that harmonized the flavors and gave it that special kick.

The rest of the transaction went much smoother. The food arrived, Aziraphale paid, and he was out the door with only a surly grunt-and-wave from Karkat. He only noticed halfway back to the bookshop that the Vantases had packed an order for two.

How considerate they were! Besides his unhealthy fascination with subpar literature, Karkat really was a Very Nice Boy. This small act of kindness significantly bolstered Aziraphale's spirits to the point where he thought himself prepared to face another round of stilted conversation with his smite-happy, possibly genocidal intern.

He was not, however, prepared to deal with Crowley and Eridan's budding friendship. This was what he heard when he opened the door to the back room:

"I admire Caligula, actually. Reports of his insanity were greatly exaggerated."

"Knew the guy. You're right; he wasn't that bad. _Creative_."

Aziraphale had also known Emperor Gaius, and while he hadn't been the worst human the angel had met, he still wasn't a very good one. He definitely wasn't someone an angel should look up to in any way. Crowley's morbid fascination with imperial trainwrecks was a given by now, and it was socially acceptable, what with him being a demon and all that entailed. Aziraphale began to wonder if he shouldn't start considering Eridan as a demon who just happened to have angelic powers.

On the bright side, it could have been much worse. They could have tried to smite each other. They could have destroyed his bookshop. That a first time meeting between an angel and a demon did not result in discorporation and/or permanent death and/or an exorbitant amount of property damage was considered exceedingly rare. That they were sat around enjoying a pot of tea together must constitute some sort of miracle.

"Lotsa folk forget his public works projects and shit," Eridan said.

"Well, sure, there's that. But it's the orgies that first caught your attention, eh?" Crowley gave Eridan a friendly nudge with his elbow. "Am I right or am I right?"

"Nothing wrong with an emperor enjoying some fine-ass bitches…"

Aziraphale was very easy-going for an angel, but there were some things even he wouldn't stand for. The elder angel purposely sighed loudly to interrupt the blasphemous conversation.

Crowley turned to him with a grin. "Hey, Angel."

"Yes, hello. I see you two have met."

Anyone who had known Aziraphale for long, or was just sensitive about these things, would have picked up on his lack of 'my dear's and other antiquated Britishisms that spoke to how low his reserves of patience were becoming. Eridan was neither of those, and he said, bluntly, "Didn't peg you as being kinky enough to shack up with a demon. Does Above know about this?"

Crowley hiss-snorted in amusement. Aziraphale took three deep breaths to calm himself2 and then placed the curry take-away on the table. With his normal beatific smile on his face, he said, "Care to join me for lunch?" After all, the portions were generous, and what was meant for two could easily feed three.

"Vindaloo?" Crowley asked, brows perking up in anticipation.

"Extra spicy."

"Did they shout?"

"About medical school, even."

"Good. I swear it doesn't taste right if they don't shout over the food."

\---

"I see it! They're… eating… spaghetti! The Prime Minister and his wife are eating spaghetti!"

In Lower Tadfield, in a house like any other, three witches stood in their kitchen doing very witchy things.

Jade bit her lip as she wondered exactly how to word her concerns. "Fef," she said to her excitable friend, "I think your scrying would be clearer if you took the cuttlefish out of the bowl."

Feferi glanced up at her coven and back down to the mirrored bowl filled with saltwater and colorful cuddle-friends. Cuttlefish normally did not make good pets, but Feferi was a witch, and a Witch of Life, at that. She'd never had a pet die on her yet, including her many prized cuttlefish that were only supposed to live for two years. She's had them for fifteen.

"But they're my familiars. I can't just leave them out."

"Maybe you could, I don't know, put them in a bowl to the side?"

"But they're my _familiars_ , Jade. My _babies_!"

"Scrying for babies," Damara said. She leaned back on the kitchen counter and took a drag from her cigarette. "I teach you kill through mirror."

"No killing!" Jade and Feferi shouted together.

Damara laughed, which for her was a quiet rasp. "Is joke. Mirror good. Watch old man fuck wife like dog."

Jade threw up her hands and walked out of the kitchen. "Whatever. Spy on an orgy for all I care.3 I'm going to talk to Rose."

"'Kay! Say hi to her for me! Oh, and tell her I want one of her Squiddle plushies! In fuchsia!"

"Mm," she replied. 

Jade had taken six steps up the stairs when she heard Damara call after her, "Rose sweet girl. Damara masturbate when think of Rose, let Rose borrow schoolgirl uniform for tentacle rape."

"Ugh."

In Lower Tadfield, in a house like any other, three witches went about doing very witchy things. One went upstairs to Skype with a witch friend in New York, and it was this action which would lead to The Apocalypse 2.0 landing in England.

\---

1 Aziraphale wouldn't put it in those terms. He would instead say that he didn't feel as if he could trust relationship advice from someone who enjoyed bodice-rippers as much as Karkat did.

2 Yet more proof that he had gone native, since angels don't need to breathe. Demons don't, either. Crowley had been trying to convince Aziraphale that since they were both so fond of breathing when they didn't need to, they should invest in oxygen bars. Flavored air! Rich douchebags ripe for corruption! Alas, Aziraphale went the way of environmental advocacy.

3 Damara, being a Witch of Time, could scry only events in the past or distant future. Unbeknownst to Jade, she had indeed spied upon many an orgy, including those thrown by Caligula.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Fun facts that are totally not important to the story and will probs never be mentioned again:
> 
> Karkat's parents are Anjali and Venkat. (Why yes, I did give them 6-letter troll names.) His mom, Anjali, is also very shouty. She used to be new-age-y and was really into horoscopes, hence Karkat being named after the constellation Karkata (Cancer) because he was born in June.
> 
> Feferi grew up in Cascade, Seychelles. She scooped up her cuttlefish buds there, and they've been with her ever since. Cuttlefish on a plane. Cuttlefish in a dorm room. And now cuttlefish in the suburbs.


	6. Chapter 6

Hell has Internet. Of course it does. It’s especially prone to cutting out just as you’re doing something important, randomly eats emails, and on some days has no access to anything except geriatric porn and very badly programmed MMOs. It’s also heavily restricted when it comes to interacting with humans, and is generally only a thing the higher-ups have.

But all in all, Hell has Internet where Heaven does not. This was not the deciding factor in Sollux Captor’s becoming a demon – he hadn’t known of the situation beforehand, but it was one of the reasons he hadn’t yet defected to the other side.1

Instead, he slowly bided his time, worked a thankless job as Duke Hastur’s IT guy, and then hacked the Satanic Express Point Perks databases to get himself what he thought would be a cushy apprenticeship on Earth. Bad though he was at being demonic in most ways that mattered, Sollux had still survived in Hell far longer than anyone else in his pre-death IT department, all of whom had been annihilated by a gas leak and that asshole Bob from accounting who couldn’t have picked somewhere else to smoke, so it was a given that he had the type of cunning and underhanded wiles to maybe lie a bit about having Hastur’s permission to be here.2

Here was his new boss AJ’s sunroom, which was now a tropical paradise. Lush greenery, flowers, bees… Fruits were even starting to form on some of the trees, thanks to the bees' tireless pollination efforts. Sollux used his newfound demonic powers to fuse his two favorite pastimes – computing and apiculture. The result was giant purple demon bees whose hives served as organic servers for the massive computing station Sollux had built out of parts he’d found in Crowley’s flat. The computer’s core was Crowley’s PC; his television and his game consoles were in there somewhere as well. The remains of the blowtorch he’d used to threaten the flowers were probably kicking around in there too.

AJ was gone for the moment, but Sollux was cautious about the possibility of there being a trap laid out for him if he opened the sunroom door, so he remained here, alone but for his bees.

A passing bee noted its master’s melancholy and hovered close, offering Sollux the pollen balls it had collected on its back legs. Sollux shook his head no, to which the dejected bee spun a figure-eight and buzzed consolingly.

“Bees are the best,” Sollux said to his bees and himself. He carefully cupped the bee in his palms and nuzzled the fuzzy purple bum with his cheek. The bee gave a happy buzz, glad to be of use to its master.

\---

“Explain that to me again, dear.”

Crowley hastily swallowed one last mouthful of vindaloo. “It’s like this,” he said, trying condense his story and simplify his request. “My home is infested with demonic bees. The easiest and most effective way to get them out is with a bit of angel mojo.”

“Which would be me? You know I don’t like smiting.”

“And what do you know – you happen to be hosting a smiting champ here. I could take Eridan instead. Fancy some demon extermination, kid?”

Eridan poked at his curry. He had seemed subdued as soon as bees were mentioned. “I dunno,” he said. “Bees are harmless, aren’t they? Wouldn’t be right if I just blasted them.”

“They were summoned by a demon. I’m pretty sure these are monster bees.”

“But you didn’t _see_ them,” Aziraphale tried to argue.

“Oh, monster bees is totally different. Sure, I’ll smite ‘em.”

“All right!” Crowley slithered up from his seat. “Let’s go!”

Eridan had followed Crowley out of the back room and the two were well on their way out the bookshop when Aziraphale bustled over to them, protesting. “Now wait just one minute, Crowley! Your apprentice, troublesome as he might be, is still just a poor boy…”

“Nothing poor about this one, Angel. He’s sneaky.”

“Well… Well it doesn’t have to devolve into smiting quite so soon! Haven’t you heard the phrase ‘You catch more flies with honey than with vinegar’?”

It was Eridan who spoke up this time. “Why’d anyone even want to catch flies? Just kill ‘em.”

“It’s not…!” The angel was becoming flustered. “It _means_ , my dears, that things are often more easily accomplished when one uses a soft touch. People respond better to requests if you offer honey, not vinegar.”

“Yeah, well piss and vinegar’s all they’d get from me,” Eridan grumbled.

Crowley smirked, but turned it down when he met his Angel’s disapproving gaze. “I’ve tried, Angel.”

“No you haven’t. I know when you lie, dear. You probably offered to buy him dinner while holding a spray bottle of holy water behind your back.”

This was entirely true. Crowley could do nothing but act chagrined.

“Regardless, I’m coming along to make sure nothing untoward happens to the boy,” Aziraphale said. He planted himself firmly in the passenger seat of the Bentley.

\---

Hive I, which was connected to the human Internet, was running a game.

“Argh! Festering dick pustules!” Sollux’s partner shouted through the comm.

“Jesus, KK, you suck so much at this. I _told_ you they were going to ambush you if you went down the left path.” Sollux’s avatar easily sniped the enemies from afar.

“Shut up, assmunch. As soon as I revive, we hit their base.”

Sollux grunted his assent.

Hive II, which maintained a steady connection to Hell’s Internet, was busy hacking Satan’s secretary’s memos. Every once in a while, Sollux’s makeshift desktop would chime as a new memo was cracked and downloaded. Sollux had long since grown used to multitasking, so he easily skimmed the new documents while simultaneously shooting up the enemy base. Most of the memos weren’t of any importance anyway, and they all read the same: Satan would like to remind his faithless minions that the break room is not to be used for taking breaks, but for breaking bones, etc. etc.

 _Ting!_ **Satan would like to remind his faithless minions that the Woegothics are due to complete their transatlantic summoning circle by midnight tonight, Greenwich Mean Time. Please be prepared to Raise Hell.**

“Whoa, what the—” Sollux adjusted his dual-colored glasses and proceeded to re-read this strange new memo.

“Hey lispy douchelord, pay attention, would ya? They’re gaining on us!”

“Hold on to your frilly panties, KK. Something’s come up that—”

The sunroom door burst open. Sollux dropped his controller and stood up so fast that his headset ripped out of the plug and dropped to the ground. His eyes widened as he stared at the two angels – _angels_ – that stood behind Crowley and were about to smite him into a million nerdy pieces. His bees, sensing their master’s fear, huddled together in a buzzing mass behind him.

Karkat’s voice came over muted on the speakers. “—lux? Holy shit, Sollux? Are you there?”

\---

1Regardless of the usefulness of the info he’d gathered on the weaknesses in Hell’s network infrastructure and how best to hack Satan, the angels wouldn’t be able to use it because none of them understood computers at all. The other reason Sollux didn’t defect is that angels are trained to smite on sight.  
2Meanwhile, in Hell, Duke Hastur was shouting for his IT guy – the only one remaining from his torture-purge two weeks prior. The Internet was down again and his printer was jammed. Hastur raged; he needed to get his League of Legends fix NOW, and also, how was he supposed to submit his forms to the Forms Bureau if he couldn’t get anything to print? It was just as he was about to go down to the racks to see if he couldn’t find another IT guy from the ranks of the newly deceased that a message pinged on his computer. It said, “thii2 ii2 a viiru2, a22hole,” and immediately his printer kicked into high gear, spewing paper all over the room. The sounds of Rick Astley began to play, and when Hastur reached to turn it down, the speakers automatically boosted to 100%. He had no idea there were so many subwoofers hidden in his office.


	7. Chapter 7

Neither angel in the exterminating party had a flaming sword. Angels nowadays didn’t get flaming swords until they were at a certain level, meaning not until they had curried enough favors with their superiors and done enough “angel things” like performing miracles or venerating the Lord through song. Because they wouldn’t let him have one, Eridan decided swords were stupid and he’d rather have a gun, but seeing as those were banned in Heaven, he broke off the blade from the little regulation dagger they’d given him and glued a stick to it to turn it into a wand. This was his Science Boomstick.

Aziraphale, of course, had “lost” his sword.

The exterminating party stood in Crowley’s flat, in front of the sunroom door. Crowley was in the front, flanked by the angels on either side.

“All right. Okay. I’m kicking in this door.”

“Do it,” Eridan said, holding his scientific wand at the ready. “I'll cover you.”

The heel of Crowley’s slick Italian leather boot slammed down on the door just like in the movies. Perhaps with the aid of a bit of magic, the once-barricaded door burst open perfectly just like they did in said movies.

Suddenly, bees! Eridan attempted to level his wand in the direction of his opponents, the bees. They were too scattered, and their movements too quick. Almost immediately, they sensed him and fled behind the demon, who was… oddly familiar.

Bzz. BzzZZzzz. The bees were shivering as they clung to themselves and their master. “D-don’t hurt the bees,” the very familiar-looking demon managed to say.

Bzzzz! At his words, the bees flew to the front even as they were shaking. _Don’t hurt our master!_ They formed a frightened bee-shield in front of the demon at the same time that the demon was trying to herd them back behind him. The demon and his bees were both determined to sacrifice themselves for the other.

“Oh, for goodness sake!” Aziraphale burst out, “Demon bees, really! There’s nothing evil about them at all!”

After being witness to this scene, Eridan and Crowley were both in grudging agreement.

“But they’re still leaving my flat, and the flowers, too. I’m serious. This is a green-only zone.”

“Honestly, Crowley, if they bother you that much, your apprentice and his bees can come stay with me.”

The two began to bicker like an old married couple, which is exactly what they were 1. Eridan turned his attention to the bee-demon, who was still clutching an armful of giant fuzzy bees to his chest.

“Hey,” he said, “weren’t you one of the IT guys? Captor, was it?”

“Oh hey,” said possibly-Captor, “it’s you, Sales Douche. I was almost sad when they said you’d died. Almost.”

Eridan had met IT guy Captor down by the water cooler once or twice. He was very sarcastic; a worthy opponent for snark-offs. Although he’d just been insulted, Eridan figured he’d let it slide for once, seeing as the other party was still shaky from his near-smiting. They struck up a stilted conversation like two co-workers who hadn’t seen each other since one of them stole the other’s sandwich as a prank only to find out that the other had died the following day. Which was exactly what they were.

“So how’d you die?” Eridan asked.

“Gas leak in the IT department.”

“Wow, that’s dumb.”

“Not any dumber than being erotically asphyxiated to death by a murderous ex-girlfriend.”

“Best orgasm of my life.”

“Eew. Gross.”

During the chaos of the confrontation, it was forgotten that Sollux had been playing a game before the exterminating party crashed in. It remained forgotten in the aftermath until shouting flooded the room from the speakers.

“Sweet barbecued baby back Jesus ribs. Fuck me with them. Sollux, are you _actually dead_?”

“Oh shit.”

\---

Months in the past, but not many…

Miss Rose Lalonde had just gotten back from a book signing tour. It was just a small one along the eastern coast of the United States where she lived and worked, but already there were requests for her to do a larger one spanning across the country and perhaps even internationally. The meteoric rise in popularity of her first novel, Complacency of the Learned, had been a surprise to all. Rose had gotten fanfiction, fanart, love letters, and death threats all within the span of a year, and it was predicted to get worse in the coming months leading up to the release of the second volume in the series.

Her English professors had said she’d never make it; that there would be no audience for books with such moral ambiguity, even outright villainy, from its heroes. They criticized her writing as _purple prose_ – Rose scoffed at the idea of this being a bad thing – and said her plots were like the plaintive mewling death cries of Dostoyevsky, Lovecraft, and JK Rowling’s three-way mutant lovechild that should never have suffered to live. Perhaps not in those terms exactly, but that was what they meant. She was sure of it.  2

Well suck it, professors! Rose was a Lady and would never say this out loud, but she certainly thought it in the safety of her own mind. The novel that had sprung from Harry Potter slashfic was an international bestseller. The future held nothing but success upon success for Miss Lalonde, and she intended to celebrate this by having a drink and…

…chatting with Internet friends. While alone in her New York apartment. 

Alone. 

Utterly alone.

The truth of the matter was that Rose, while brilliant, was horrible with social niceties. It was perhaps _because_ she was so brilliant that she had these troubles, since she so easily recognized faults in others and felt the need to point them out in order to set her friends on the right path. In most cases, they weren’t her friends anymore, not after that. It didn’t help that she had a strong interest in the occult and had at one point been That Goth Girl in high school.

Rose had been odd for as long as she could remember. The quiet, bookish girl with an uncanny gift for seeing things became the sharp, scathing teenager who jabbed at the weaknesses she saw became the mysterious author who wrote of the secrets she had seen. Rose Lalonde was a witch – a special type of witch like Agnes Nutter or, to a lesser extent, her descendent Anathema. Rose Lalonde was a Seer.

The gift of Sight was not like any other witch’s scrying. The Sight came naturally, without any tools or incantations; it had reach and power beyond any other methods of divination, but the cost was that the witch herself could not choose what she saw or when she saw it or even the manner in which things were seen. Agnes Nutter’s psyche had been adrift in Time; she had constantly had extremely detailed visions of the future – all at once! – to the point where she had become stark, raving mad, especially since her visions surfaced as memories. Anathema’s Sight was much more limited in scope, but thus much more manageable – she saw auras, mainly. Souls, the essences of beings, who a person _really_ was, whether good or evil, filled with love or hatred. And Rose? She saw in dreams and in an abstract, almost artistic manner. Light and shadows, paths to victory and defeat.

To the untrained eye, Complacency of the Learned was just a book, and its main character, Calmasis, was a bit of a poofter. To those in the know, Calmasis’ androgyny was clearly representing a being of Angelic stock; the character’s moral ambiguity perhaps hinting at a symbolic union of Angel and Fallen. Calmasis’ plot to overthrow the wizards, then, was meant to prophesy the overthrow of the Host and the coming of the End of Days. Or maybe the Wizard Zazzerpan was actually Satan and _he_ was the one being overthrown… Or could he be both God and Satan? Another king-like being entirely?

It was something like that. Rose was no Agnes Nutter. She wasn’t quite so insane as to begin to understand her own prophecies at that level. 3

At this moment, however, Rose was awaiting her friends, none of whom were online yet. To pass the time, she idly flipped through her copy of the Grimoire of the Zoologically Dubious, a Woegothic encyclopedia of Elder Gods and other beings that reside beyond the boundaries of the present Universe. This was one of the books she’d kept from her stint as That Goth Girl, back when she’d been a member of the not-really-Satanic cult4. Rose was not particularly religious, but if she were to claim a religion, she would still consider herself a Woegoth. It was the only religion that was completely factually based. 

There _were_ Elder Gods, and they _were_ coming to devour reality – the entire Universe, Heaven and Hell and everything in between, and other Universes besides. In the grand scheme of things, since the Universe is so small, and Heaven and Hell so small alongside it, there are no such things as eternal salvation or damnation. Our Heaven, our Hell, are but one set of an infinite number of Heavens and Hells, little snow globes strung up through the chaos of Space-Time, easily popped like the fragile bubbles they are.

Where Rose now differed from her former creed was in attitude toward what was to come. The Woegothics found morbid joy in entropy; in the eventual triumph of chaos over order. They sought to help bring about the end, or to wallow in the darkness and crow about how it was all so inevitable. Rose had once been like the latter, but now, having grown up, she found that she rather _liked_ the world and wanted it to last as long as possible.

It was unfortunate, then, that as she was re-reading her grimoire, her magical core was gripped by the shadowy tendrils of a being too horrid for human minds to comprehend. It was Nyarlathotep, formerly of the Elder Gods that resided beyond the Furthest Ring, now biding his time as a Duke of Hell. In that instant, the Creeping Grimdarkness pushed itself into Rose’s body and hid there, waiting for the right moment to unleash Chaos upon the world.

\---

The present. Rainbow Falls, New York.

Rose smiled as she took the call. She smiled, and the Grimdarkness within her smiled as well.

“Hello, Jade.”

\---

1If marriage is defined as a binding social contract between two persons to support each other in sickness and in health, etc., then the Arrangement could be construed as a marriage of sorts. Crowley and Aziraphale would then be the oldest and longest-lasting marriage still in existence in all of Creation. It’s been postulated by their acquaintances, particularly the Them in their downtime, that maybe this knowledge ought to be made available to Fundamentalists so that suddenly gay marriage wouldn’t seem like that big of a deal.   
2Their exact words were “interesting”, “impressive variety of vocabulary, but some words too obscure for the target audience”, and, at the worst, “needs improvement”. Rose was hypercritical of herself and tended to project this attitude onto others. This was especially true for her mother, whom Rose insisted was a passive-aggressive manipulative bitch and master of psychological warfare – a description that anyone who’d spoken with either Miss Lalonde for more than ten minutes would agree was 100% accurate… of Rose.   
3She also put in more homosexual subtext than was strictly necessary or even accurate according to her visions. Years later, scholars would dissect the dialogue between the wizards Zazzerpan and Frigglish, arguing amongst each other over whether they had been lovers before Frigglish’s untimely demise. Witches who’d taken the interpretation that Zazzerpan was Satan would wonder if this meant the Lord of Hell had been doing one of his Dukes, possibly Hastur, up the bum.   
4They were only Satanists in that they believed Satan was their founding member. The Woegothics also believed, correctly, that Satan was in cahoots with the Elder Gods, and that releasing Satan was the first step to inviting the Elder Gods to devour Existence.


	8. Chapter 8

Jake Harley hovered over his granddaughter’s shoulder while she used the computer in her room. He’d been taking a nap – basically zoning out since angels don’t need to sleep – while she was downstairs, but now his protective instincts had awakened, and he watched with the utmost vigilance to make sure Jade wasn’t taking a call from some sort of genital-exposing fiend on Chat Roulette. Or, goodness gracious, an entire _string_ of genital-exposing fiends! Land sakes!

This wasn’t something that had actually happened before, mind, but Jake had recently taken a trip to Stalwart Pines Assisted Living Community where the last of his friends were still kicking about. They couldn’t see him, but some of them didn’t need visual cues to begin talking. And the things they said! The modern world truly was frightening. Jake’s finely honed angelic reflexes were poised to block the screen in case such a thing happened to his precious Jadey.

“Grandpa, it’s just Rose.”

“But sweetie, it could be someone _impersonating_ Rose. I keep up with the modern trends, you know, and I’ve listened to those whatchamacallits, the hip-hop em-pee-threes. It’s not beyond a cowardly ruffian to sink to identity theft in order to take the credit for Rose’s fresh rhymes!”

“That’s not how identity theft works,” Jade said. “Not outside of rap battles, anyway.” She shook her head and rolled her eyes, but her grandfather somehow missed those cues.

“We must always be more than adequately prepared to deal with life’s challenges! Constant—”

“—vigilance, yes, yes. I’m regretting ever letting you watch Harry Potter.”

When the call went through, Jake was relieved to see it really was just Rose.

“Hi, Rose!” Jade waved cheerily and launched into a bout of witchy gossip. Jake waved from behind and was pleased to note that Rose acknowledged his presence.

On Rose’s desk beside her was a basket of knitting supplies. Needles, yarn, and a half-finished tentacle-bearing sea creature stuck out of it. At Jade’s request, Rose riffled through the basket and produced a “Squiddle” in fuchsia.

“This one?”

“Yes, it’s perfect! Now, are you sure I wouldn’t be able to do this with a regular transportation spell?”

“I know those are your specialty, but summoning spells are much more powerful. We’re trying to move things across oceans, after all. I don’t know of any transportation spell that could do that, do you?”

Jade slumped a bit in her seat. “Not with the right amount of accuracy, no.”

“Don’t worry,” Rose said. “With the modifications I’ve made, I’m sure casting this will feel exactly the same as a transportation spell.”

“If you’re sure… And after this, you’ll be able to visit us whenever you want, right? No more plane fares or jet lag!”

“That’s the plan, yes.”

“You’ve got the practice circle all set up on your end?”

“Oh, absolutely.” She took the fuchsia Squiddle and her laptop with her as she moved to the kitchen to show off the circle she’d drawn on the dining table. Jade had drawn one exactly like it on the end table in her room. Rose placed the Squiddle in the center of hers while Jade scooted over until she could place her palms above hers.

When the little knit creature hit the circle, Jake felt a sudden wave of unease. He wasn’t very powerful, magic-wise1, and therefore wasn’t very good at sensing energies or spiritual disturbances. He’d never had prolonged contact with demonic energies to know what that was like, but something told him even that would be incomparable. This feeling was subtly horrid, like a cold dampness curling in the back of his mind. It disappeared if he thought too hard about it, but was there again as soon as he thought it was gone.

“Jade… Do you feel that?”

“Not now, grandpa. I need to concentrate for this to work.”

Jake glanced back and forth between his granddaughter at work with the magic circle, and the scene from across the globe where a soft octopus smiled at the camera. He stared at the yarn smile and felt himself drawn in, hypnotically… It distorted, stretched wide, ripped like bursting stars supernova racing across galaxies leaving less than nothingness in its wake—

“JADE!” 

It was a stuffed toy once more.

Jake shivered, shaken by the glimpse of Beyond he’d received. He closed his eyes and said, in a voice he hoped was strong enough to carry, “Jade, you need to stop. There’s something wrong…”

There was no response. He opened his eyes once more, one at a time to take a cautious peek at his surroundings. All was quiet. Everything was in its place except… The Squiddle was gone from Rose’s screen. Jake whipped around to see his granddaughter standing up; her back was to him and she rose slowly.

The Squiddle sat on the end table, ever smiling, the invisible tendrils of its influence wrapped around its new host.

“Well,” Jade said, “I’d call that a success, wouldn’t you?”

“I’ll see you at midnight, then?” Rose called sweetly.

“It’s a date.”

\---

Karkat chucked his game controller across the room. Sollux had cut off his connection, that utter fucknut! Something strange was afoot which required investigation.

Normally, Karkat wouldn’t be the type of person to rush into the unknown, but things were different when they involved his friends or tolerable acquaintances. He had _distinctly_ heard the voices of Mr Fell and Skeezy Boyfriend on the line as well, so it was doubly important to Karkat that he find out what was going on. Without letting himself second-guess his decisions, he marched down from his room and out the front of the building past the restaurant.

“I’m taking an extended break!”

“And I’m docking your pay!”

Unbeknownst to Karkat, the particular batch of curry that his father was working on at the moment would come out especially delicious.

\---

Four cups of honey tea and one extended argument later, the inhabitants of Crowley’s flat had been negotiated back to just the one. Then it was quickly up to two again when Eridan volunteered to swap places so he could live in this “swanky as fuck bachelor pad, no offense to the bookstore, but _tartan_ ”. Crowley accepted the trade under the condition that his swapped apprentice take up demon-ing over angel-ing, to which Eridan replied, “Whatever, it’s all science in the end. How big is that TV?” It was custom made, a subtle showing of his loyalties in case any of Hell’s bureaucrats stopped by for a surprise inspection: 66.6 inches.

On the other hand, Aziraphale’s humble abode had gained, using the most conservative count, at least 40-some new inhabitants in the form of one skinny demon and his 40-some bees split across two hives. Also coming along were the computer-hives, untold numbers of bee eggs, and assorted flowering plants.

Crowley hired a moving service which he knew from past dealings to be particularly obtuse about the nature of their clients’ belongings. The bees filed into their hives and waited with nary a buzz. With a little magic here, a little miracle there, and a sprinkling of “science”, Sollux’s things were neatly boxed and ready to go. 

It took the better part of the afternoon to make all these arrangements; most of that time was spent in the arguing stage. Not all of the arguments involved Crowley, either. Sollux had to argue with his bees over moving the hives while there were eggs inside, the bees argued with Aziraphale over the state of the bookshop when the angel admitted that it was dusty (because who wants dusty honey?), and Aziraphale argued with Eridan about the wisdom of switching sides this late in the cosmic game over something as inconsequential as _tartan_. 

“Really,” Aziraphale said, “if you’re aiming to Fall, it should be for a much better reason than that it’s more fashionable on the other side.”

“But fashion,” Crowley said knowingly, “is the root of all evil.”

Eridan concurred. “Fashion is a perfectly good reason for pursuing anything!”

“Oh, but try not to Fall completely. Below’s décor is hideous. I’m the only demon I know who has good taste.”

“Duly noted.”

Aziraphale, however, was not yet convinced that he should let Eridan go. The Metatron had entrusted the young angel to him, and it wouldn’t be very responsible to let his intern traipse off with an agent of Hell, familiar though said agent might be. Better the devil you know, they said, though no devils at all would be preferable in this case. Even though he knew Crowley in the Biblical sense2, it still wouldn’t do to let angels-in-training get tempted by the promise of material goods. He pointed out the fact that Above would be watching; not closely, but enough to notice if Aziraphale were suddenly missing an intern.

“I’ll take up angel-ing,” Sollux said. He raised a hand to volunteer himself in Eridan’s place. His bees, which had yet to be boxed at that point, flew behind him in perfect synchronization to create a pair of flapping bee wings on his back. One bee flew lazy circles above his head as a buzzing purple halo.

Sensing that this was the best offer he would get, Aziraphale grudgingly accepted. The bees were boxed, and their motley crew of… one angel, one demon, and two whatevers set back out to the bookshop.

They were not expecting to be yelled at as soon as they pulled up to the curb.

“Took you fuckers long enough!”

\---

1He’d won the one and only fight he’d had with a demon without using any magic at all. Jake had said, “Put ‘em here!” and raised his fists in the stance of the gentlemen boxers of yore. Jab, jab, hook, the demon was down.  
2Both Biblical senses.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Through a series of questionable life choices, I’ve somehow ended up as a pre-school teacher halfway across the globe, and am now corrupting young minds and instilling within them a lifelong fascination with poking at things. Kids like me because I’m mentally one of them HA HA ALSO I GET TO MAKE A BEEHIVE POSTER. My bees are the cutest, man. So fat and happy… I freaked out my co-workers when I got all excited about that, and then one guy was like, “Did you know bees lose their stingers when they sting you and then they die?” and other people were like, “Really?” and I was like, “Yeah, it’s an evolutionary trait to protect the colony from large predators since the stingers lodge under the skin and keep burrowing in to do extra damage after detaching from the bee. Kamikaze bees sacrifice themselves FOR THE HIVE.” And then they were like, “wtf why do you know this?”
> 
> So... now you know more about me than you probably should. To wit, there's a lot of useless trivia and science geekery floating around in my head, and I am flakier than a pastry. And just in case it wasn’t obvious by now, I really like Sollux’s bees. Or just bees in general. I like all the bees. Fuck wasps.


	9. Chapter 9

It was a Friday. This fact had not crossed anyone’s mind except in fleeting, or in anticipation for the weekend.

Karkat was not one of those people. The weekend is not a cause for celebration when one works in foodservice. Things get busier, and before you know it, there’s a party of six demanding booster seats for their hellspawn on one side of the restaurant while some poor soul is having dinner with the in-laws on the other, and just when it seems like no one will die this night, the single diner hunched over in the darkest corner quietly chokes on a samosa and nobody notices until he falls to the floor. It was no surprise, then, that Karkat did not thank god (any god) for Friday, and not only because he was about as religious as a turtle1.

Eridan _used_ to look forward to Fridays, back when he counted among the living. Fridays in Heaven, however, were as boring as any other day, for the Lord commanded that they should work six days and rest on the Sabbath, which was spent venerating the Lord through song. None of these things interested Eridan in the least.

Sollux was usually too burned out from having to interact with real people all week to have the ability to care by the time Friday rolled around, and there were no weekends in Hell, at least not for tech support. His afterlife thus far had been a perpetual string of Fridays. Friday, Friday, and Friday again, but never did the weekend arrive.

Crowley and Aziraphale had been around the proverbial block so many times and in so many ways that days of the week hardly mattered anymore…

And the bees, of course, were just bees. Every creature in creation was strange to them. Irrational. Did things inefficiently. Only the bees got things right, according to the bees, and they certainly didn’t bother with designating special days to be _lazy_.

There were, of course, other beings who did enjoy this particular Friday. Among those were Rose Lalonde’s English fans, many of whom were eagerly awaiting her midnight book signing booked for the Waterstones in Upper Tadfield2. They waited at the café within the book store and the one across the street. The true fanatics lined up even though it would be hours before Miss Lalonde arrived.

Little did they know that she was not, in fact, on a plane right this very moment. And little did they know that they were to become ritual sacrifices in the summoning of Nyarlathotep, the Crawling Chaos, God of a Thousand Forms.

It was a Friday. It was a good day for a latte.

One town over, in Lower Tadfield, the Grimdark vessel formerly known as Jade Harley descended the stairs with a flowing grace that Jade had never possessed. Her movements were sensuous like the curling smoke from a clove cigarette; they carried with them the scent of underworlds.

“Oh, hey,” Feferi said when she saw what appeared to be her friend. “I tried that thing you said, with the taking my cuddle-buds out of the bowl first, and my scrying really is better!”

“That’s nice,” not-quite-Jade said. It _was_ Jade, and it wasn’t. Grimdark possession was a tricky thing because the original psyche remained in there still, fully aware, and it was like the possessor was just a swirl of rancid frosting layered on top.

Damara took one glance at the newcomer and said, “Is not Jade.”

“Not _quite_.”

“Like I say, is not Jade.”

“Very well,” said not-quite-Jade, “You can call me Shub-Niggurath, Duchess of Hell, the Black Goat of the Woods with a Thousand Young. Niggurath for short. And _we_ are going for a ride.”

\---

It was a Friday, and Karkat Vantas was skipping out on work during the dinnertime rush. He had abandoned his post, left his father all alone to handle the screaming brats, in-laws, and samosa-chokers. He had knowingly set himself up for a weekend filled with nothing but concerned fatherly yelling so that he could follow a _hunch_.

The hunch panned out.

Four guilty-looking otherworldly beings had ushered him into the bookshop where they were now settled around having something vaguely resembling a group counseling session, though it must be said that there wasn’t a single counselor in particular. Aziraphale and Karkat traded the role in equal measure, and they were sometimes joined by the bees, who were otherwise engaged in cleaning their new abode with miracled tiny mops and brooms.

First there were the obligatory questions: You’re an angel? You’re a demon? What exactly does that mean? The answers were thus: Yes. Yes. No one is quite sure on the matter except God and possibly Satan, and they are not taking calls. All messages from the Lord come through the Metatron; it’s a mostly one-way communication method and said mouthpiece is the angelic equivalent to what those on Earth might call “a bit of a dick”. Satan lives amidst a swirl of the most terrifying bureaucracy known to Paradox Space – don’t even go there.

Karkat, sensing that he would get no further along that line of questioning, turned his attentions to Sollux. “You’re a mess,” he said.

“Thanks, KK. That means a lot coming from you.”

“You’d think being turned into some sort of magical asshole would get rid of the perpetual hobo stench that surrounds you, but I see you fail as utterly at keeping yourself somewhat presentable whether dead or alive. Did you at least take your goddamn meds before you kicked it?”

“Jesus fuck, KK, stop _mothering_ me. Human meds don’t even _work_ on me anymore, why the fuck should you care?”

In the background, Crowley muttered something that sounded like, “Oh, youth. They absolutely do work once you learn how to hack your corporation,” to which Aziraphale said, “Shush dear, they’re _healing_ ,” to which Crowley whined, “But _angel_ , he’s a _hacker_. He’d _appreciate_ the tip.” Eridan, also in a whispered tone, said, “I appreciate it. Teach me later?”

Karkat sighed and, valiantly ignoring what he had previously designated to be ‘old people talk’, now amended to ‘old people and hipster talk’, said, “Tell me how you fucked up, you pathetic piece of shit dangling in a colonoscopy bag.” 

Despite the crude language, this sort of attention seemed to be exactly what Sollux needed. His eyes darted to the sides, and he idly flipped his fingers through a programming book he’d plucked off Aziraphale’s shelves, only outdated by fifteen years. His shoulders shook as he related his tale.

“I was talking to the guy in the next cubicle over, about bees and bad beekeeping practices used by certain commercial apiaries. Guess I got a bit worked up over it and was full of negative energy when I died. Having murderous thoughts about some bee-abusers, you know. That’s probably what did it.” Sollux paused. He scrunched up his brow and stuck out the tip of his tongue as he contemplated the possible reasons for his descent. “Or maybe it was just working tech support. All of us were miserable bastards and we all ended up in Hell together.”

“Yeah, no,” Crowley said, butting in yet again. “Below goes through tech support at a surprisingly fast rate. It’s more likely they planned it all and had planted someone to reap your souls right away.”

“Oh, wow. That is not reassuring in the slightest.”

“They can _do_ things like that?” Aziraphale was aghast. “That’s not playing fair at all!”

“Well, your side got to claim most of the perpetrators of the Crusades, and we know how horrible _they_ were. Below would have done quite well with that sort of, er, ingenuity. Or. Not. No, it was better that your guys took them. Wouldn’t want them usurping the Boss’ place, yeah?”

Crowley’s thoughtless remarks set off another debate between the senior pair. Sollux and Karkat were content to leave them to it, but Eridan took the opportunity to sidle up to his target, Sollux. “So our mentors,” Eridan began, “They’re an item, y’know?” He gestured slyly between the two of them. “Whaddaya say, you an me?”

Karkat made a disgusted face, but Sollux did not reply straight away. Perhaps it was the talk of usurpation that triggered his memory, or perhaps it was that Eridan chose that ill-timed moment to hit on him. Sollux suddenly remembered the Very Important Thing he’d read in a memo earlier this evening.

"Jesus!"

"That's my middle name, don't wear it out," Karkat said.

"I thought your middle name was Rajesh3."

"It is. Shut up."

“No,” Sollux said, “No, I _won’t_ shut up! Listen, this is important! Really important!” He gradually became more and more worked up as he gathered the others’ attentions, and as his memory returned. “Sata-- Below is-- Below is planning an attack! Tonight!”

“Uh, are we doomed?” Eridan asked. 

“Yes!”

Eridan was obviously confused at this chain of events, and also partly disbelieving. Other potential paramours had, in the past, made up quite interesting stories to divert his attention, but Sollux hadn’t seemed the type, or so he’d thought. In fact, he seemed genuinely distraught.

The bees were thrown into a tizzy over their Master’s emotionally unstable state. They began to swarm and buzz loudly, most having abandoned their tiny cleaning instruments in order to fret alongside Sollux. Others fretted while clutching their brooms to their chests, appearing faint.

“Now hold on a minute.” Crowley stepped in, attempting for once to be the voice of reason. “Below plans things all the time. It’s a demon thing, being in cahoots. None of it has ever been anything to worry about unless the Boss specifically says the phrase ‘Raise Hhhhhh— H-E-double hockey sticks.”

“Raise Hell?”

“Yes.”

“Nothing’s gonna happen unless that was in the memo.”

“Right on, kid. See, it wasn’t there, was it? Nothing’s gonna happen.”

Sollux again retreated to a quiet state, seemingly placated. The other members of their mismatched cohort settled alongside him. He stuck out his tongue again as he put his hands to his temple and called up more of his hazy memory…

“Aaaaugh! It was in the memo!”

The room exploded in bees.

\---

1It’s turtles all the way down! And yet, despite being a religious icon for others, the turtles themselves remain stout nonbelievers.  
2The book being promoted was the third in the Complacency of the Learned series, The Captive of Zazzerpan.  
3After Rajesh Khanna, Bollywood superstar and King of Romance.


	10. Jesus in Suburbia and Other Tales

Had they not lived through the events, Crowley and Aziraphale would have thought the failed apocalypse to have come too quickly. Jesus was supposed to be gone for two thousand years, so it was a decade early, or four decades and some change if going by his date of death. It was the 1990s, an era known for being a time that nearly everyone who had lived through it would like to forget. The late 80s and early 90s were an embarrassment, really – a rather bland era with a surplus of badly permed hair and buddy cop films.

Neither angels nor demons knew that the reason Hell had pushed the date of the apocalypse up to a year as blandly terrible as 1990 was because this was when the Christ was scheduled to be reborn. It was a secret that he was to be reborn at all and not just descending down upon the battlefield to sweep the Chosen off to Heaven. That he was to be born that summer to a young Indian couple living, of all places, in Upper Tadfield, Oxfordshire, was a secret so closely guarded that the angels charged with overseeing his birth were sworn to secrecy and promptly reassigned to a remote village in the Amazon so as to prevent any meddling, God’s orders.

Had the Vantas family lived but a few kilometers off, in Lower Tadfield, our story would be vastly different. Karkat would have been drawn toward Adam, and Dog would perhaps have attempted to eat Baby Jesus v2.0, among other shenanigans. As it was, the Vantases had been repelled by Adam’s casually racist energies while house-hunting some years back. Anjali Vantas was no witch, but she had the tiniest pinprick of magical potential inside her, and so she said to her husband, “Dear, I don’t know why, but I think these people are racists. Let’s just move into that house in Upper Tadfield. It’s closer to your work anyway.”

Venkat Vantas had shrugged and said, “Why not?” He knew better than to argue with his wife at times like this. She was calm at the moment, but could begin shouting at any sign of disagreement. Venkat, too, would begin shouting, and then their neighbors would call the police on them for domestic disturbance. This would result in many unpleasant conversations where the police not-so-subtly implied to him that he better not be abusing his lovely wife, whereupon he would grow incensed yet again and shout at them for their unfounded accusations because he would _never_ do such a thing how _dare_ you imply this when we were just arguing about which brand of cake mix to buy, and his wife would join in to scold them at his side. It would just be a mess, really. They’d done this so many times already. It wasn’t worth all the trouble to get to the angry make-up sex.

Sure enough, they settled down in suburban Upper Tadfield, in a house that looked like every other. Venkat was close to his work at the nearby military base where he was an engineer. He had a PhD and everything, and his Very Important Government Work made him abjectly miserable. Some days he even wished he’d listened to his parents when they’d shouted at him to go to medical school.

Anjali, in those days, was a free spirit. She dressed like the 70s had never ended, with flowing skirts and colorful beads and, yes, sometimes flowers in her hair. Though not exactly of a peaceful countenance, she was adamantly anti-war and had been something of an activist in days gone by. She worked at a florist and did tarot readings in the back room. Her husband’s military job was the biggest point of contention between them, but she was slowly wearing him down. Things came to a head when she found out she was pregnant.

“I don’t want Karkat exposed to this toxic environment!”

“Karkat? Who’s that?”

“Our son, you asshole!”

“Oh, really? You’re naming him _cancer_? Tell me now how that’s not a passive-aggressive dig, a real _low fucking blow_ about how you think there’s a nuclear stockpile at the airbase, you… you conspiracy theorist! I thought we’d agreed that his name will be _Rajesh_ , which is a normal name that normal people have.”

“Shut up! We’re not talking about that now. We’re talking about how this is a toxic environment not suitable for raising our son, _who will most definitely be named Karkat _, which is a beautiful name and I will not hear otherwise.”__

“Toxic how? You want to talk about toxic environments? He’ll have food and shelter, access to proper education and healthcare, safety and loving parents. How is that not better than barely scraping by in the slums of Kolkata like our parents had to in order to bring us here, hmm?1”

“And he’ll be miserable!” Anjali screamed. She broke into tears at this point and covered her eyes, fiercely wiping them away as she continued. “He’ll be miserable because _you_ are, because you _hate_ your job! You come home angry all the time because you _hate_ designing things that kill people and _you know I’m right_!”

Venkat could have argued back that he’d sold his soul so he could provide for her, that he’d had to take the job because someone had to be the responsible one in the family and that happened to be him since she was so set on doing shitty fucking tarot readings and crystal healing bullcrap and that he let her practice her useless fakey fake new age spirituality because he loved her and put her happiness above his own. It was all true, but it didn’t change the fact that she was right.

They made arrangements to move back to London. Venkat quit his job, and when he did so, all his dreams of the perfect suburban life with his wife and child disappeared. Strangely, he was not so sad at the prospect.

And Karkat Vantas, the Second Coming of Christ, was all of two months old when he left Greater Tadfield mere days before the apocalypse came and ended at the military base where his dad used to work. He would never know much about those days except that they’d used to live in “some Podunk town, it’s on your birth certificate” before they came to London and opened a restaurant.

He would, however, come to resent his father’s shouting about medical school because it wasn’t as if going to a fancy fucking graduate school had made his father happy, so why should it be any different this time around? Karkat had been set, from about age six onwards, to be a romance novelist.

Young Karkat Vantas had, for as long as he remembered, been in love with love. He loved everything about love and would punch other kids in the face if they made fun of him for it. He was also kind (in his own abrasive way) and had a way with words2. Loving, kind, and eloquent – perfect qualities for the prophesied Savior.

One of the angels who had overseen Karkat’s birth tracked him down years later after secretly taking a “break” from her South American posting. She was appalled by Karkat’s… everything except the three above-mentioned qualities. And she almost made contact with him, in order to correct his perceived deficiencies, when she was promptly demoted and reassigned to Kazakhstan, God’s orders.

\---

Yet more years later, Karkat met Sollux online, struck up a friendship based on video games and mutual antagonism, and promptly proceeded to nag at Sollux like an overbearing guardian. The nagging was actually good for Sollux who, under Karkat’s supervision, began to take his depression meds more regularly if only to get Karkat off his back.

“So I got a job,” Sollux said one day. They were chatting over a rousing game of Mario Kart.

“Yeah? Finally decided to leave your man-child cave?”

“Oh fuck you. Like you’re one to talk, basement-dweller.”

“Hey. _Above_ this basement is a house that is connected to a restaurant where I _work_ , though I suppose that is an entirely new concept to you, fucking slacker. And that’s on top of going to school.”

“Like I said, fuck you. ‘Creative writing’ isn’t school. At least get an English degree, goddamn basement-dweller. Meanwhile, _I’m_ being a productive member of society.”

“What part of ‘I work’ did you not understand? I’ve _been_ working since high school, asshat. Think your stupid new job can top that? I bet you stock shelves at Tesco.”

As much as he enjoyed trading barbs with Karkat, Sollux was more interested in rubbing it in Karkat’s face that he had ascended to the ranks of the white-collar. “Ha fucking ha. I’m working in IT now, at Reynholm Industries3.”

“Is that supposed to mean anything to me?”

“Nah, it’s just some company run by a bunch of corporate dicks. You know, like every other company. Except stupider, because they hired me without a degree.”

“Wow. Uh, congrats on finding a really dumb boss, I guess?”

“Pew pew, motherfucker.” He launched a slew of red shells against Karkat’s Toad.

\---

Sollux went into work the next day in an uncharacteristically good mood. It was also this day when he would first be called to fix a computer on the eleventh floor, Sales and Marketing, and then met Eridan Ampora, who would consequently be nicknamed Sales Douche.

Eridan was actually the most tolerable of the lot on the eleventh floor, which was why he was affectionately burdened with the capital letters. Everyone else was just a sales douche – no capital letters, a statement of plain fact.

“I got rid of the virus,” Sollux said after fixing Eridan’s computer. “Next time just run a scan after surfing so much porn, geez.”

“You new?” Eridan asked. “Wow, that lisp is adorable.”

“Oh my god, fuck you. Are you seriously hitting on me two minutes after we just met?”

He was, and continued to do so every time they met thereafter, about once every two weeks or so. In retaliation, Sollux began stealing Eridan’s sandwiches out of the fridge in the Sales and Marketing lounge. He would nonchalantly plant himself by the water cooler after scarfing the sandwich – usually tuna, sometimes seafood salad – and watch Eridan flail about as he failed to find his lunch.

Eridan would eventually round on Sollux, crow triumphantly about having apprehended the heinous sandwich thief, and proceed to hit on him some more.

“If you liked my cooking so much, you coulda just asked. Come over sometime and I’ll make you a real fancy spread, a feast like you’ve never seen before. You like lasagna?”

“I’m not stupid enough to go to your house. I bet you’re so desperate you’d drug the wine.”

“Lemme take you out to the Ritz then. Heard they got a great sushi restaurant there.”

“Fuck no, you big sleaze. I’m a delicate flower who needs to be wooed with graphics cards and shitty internet memes.”

The thing about Eridan, Sollux thought, was that he was a caricature of himself. He acted like a corporate douchebag because he thought that was the way he was supposed to be. He truly, legitimately thought he had to be an asshole to others because of his position as a manager; he thought it was his duty to make sure others knew he was a snob. Sollux had remote access to his computer, though, and knew that the “real” Eridan liked pirates and wizards, and also once upon a time wanted to be a marine biologist. And not in the way that little kids want to be marine biologists after watching _Free Willy_ or _Dolphin Tales_ , no, Eridan had been a marine biology major until something bit his ass and he switched to business instead.

He was, as Karkat would probably say, a pitiful wreck. So slick and put together on the outside, so desperate for approval on the inside. And if Sollux had been about to give in to the date on that fateful day Eridan turned up dead from a disastrous fling with his psycho ex, well… No one had to know.

\---

Karkat woke up one morning in his teenage years, at the height of puberty, with a stiffy and the knowledge that he was the Son of God. Rather than being elated or feeling that he was responsible for righting all the wrongs of the universe, he instead grew yet more resentful of life in general. The world was full of assholes who shit on the beautiful things non-assholes created. The former category included his Father; the latter included his father.

He had no intention of dying for some other assholes’ wrongs, or of being publically tortured to appease the wrath of an absent spiritual Father. The father he had now was good enough, thank you, and said father would _never_ ask his son to do such a horrid thing how _dare_ you imply that he would condone child abuse when he and his son were just arguing over whether brownies or lemon bars were better for a bake sale.

Karkat, much like Adam, chose to lock away most of his powers until it was time to use them, if that time ever came. He was hoping it never would, and he had almost managed to convince himself that his claim to godhood was just a stupid childhood delusion. The time, unfortunately, came when his best friend Sollux, now a demon, screamed and his bees went wild.

Karkat reached for the reservoir of power within his soul and said, simply, “Stop.”

Sollux paused. His bees settled. The other occupants of the bookshop froze as well, looking at him in awe, like they’d never seen him before. He supposed they hadn’t, not like this.

“Stop,” he said again. “We have enough time to stop them. Let’s come up with a plan.”

Contrary to his outward calm, the bit of Karkat’s mind that remained fully human was panicking in ridiculous ways. Among other things, he thought of how Jesus Rajesh Vantas was in no way the kind of name anyone would have thought up for the supposed Savior. Also, the Lamb of God was not supposed to smell like curry. 

\---

1Geez, Anjali, check your privilege.

2This skill was most often abused to form long-winded, graphic and unpleasant insults. It had first gotten him into serious trouble in the sixth grade when, on his then-popular MySpace page, he wrote, “Mrs. Baker is a horrible teacher and a saggy old bint who’s only still alive out of sheer spite. The school administration should put her out of her misery, but they won’t because they’re fucking two-faced cowards whose consciences are more lacking than shit in a gaping asshole after a huge enema.” Karkat was the school hero for a full month after he came back from his week-long suspension.

3While the company itself was located in an impressive downtown skyscraper, the IT department was highly understaffed and, ironically, located in the building’s dingy basement. When Karkat found out, he expressed his rage with a convoluted metaphor involving a shitmonger and a sloth defiling a marital bed. In a true feat of loquaciousness, the rant lasted for a full ten minutes without ever directly using the word "hypocrisy".

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Reynholm Industries is from “The IT Crowd”, which is a brilliant show, btw. I mean, you see his co-workers? He fits right in.
> 
> I love Karkat. Don’t be surprised if he ends up taking over every single fic I write. It’s a good thing Dave’s not in this one or he’d be monologue-ing all over the damn place. It’s a constant battle not to slip him in. See how much of a slave I am to my favorites?
> 
> (IDK maybe in the never-to-be-written sequel, Jesus!kat goes to Texas to pitch his screenplay to this ironic douchebag hotshot director. And then they bang.)
> 
> Karkat’s dad remains firmly an “OC who’s not very important to the overall story”, though I couldn’t resist throwing in a Kankri reference. Just think of him as a strange amalgamation of Kankri, giant screeching crab monster, John's Dad, and some normal human guy trying to make ends meet. The perfect father figure for any burgeoning religious icon.
> 
> There are probably no non-Homestuck readers, but just in case, uh, yeah. Karkat is Jesus. That is a thing that is pretty much Homestuck canon. I’d planned for it to be the case here as well, ever since Karkat’s introduction. It was never intended to be a secret.
> 
> Indian atheist Jesus who smells like lamb curry is a thing in this fic, okay? See you guys in Hell.


	11. Chapter 11

Three witches, one of whom was also currently a Duchess of Hell, rode in a car headed from the suburbs to the city. It was a hybrid SUV, very comfortable and exceedingly practical as befitting a sensible witch like Jade. Unfortunately, the other witches of her coven were not quite as sensible (though still far more sensible than most people by virtue of them being witches), and so the SUV was painted in pink camo (Feferi) and bore a complex anti-possession charm etched on the underside of the hood (Damara).

Since demons are actually a _thing_ , and possession by said demons is also a _thing_ , one would think Damara’s runic workings to be a sensible precaution. They were, to an extent. However, Damara had only seen fit to ward against the very specific forces of evil attuned to Freddie Mercury’s voice1. All the complexities of the rune came from its specificity rather than its power. It could no more repel the demonic forces driving the SUV’s driver than could the pine-scented air freshener that was currently making Jade-Niggurath’s nose twitch.

There were quite a few other runes carved on the vehicle in inconspicuous places. Behind the rearview mirror, inside the cup holders, disguised as a cigarette burn on the carpet… “Hell have strong influence here,” Damara had said once she’d finished slithering all over their newly acquired vehicle. “Make everything turn to Queen faster. I hate Queen.” Jade’s hellish affliction should have brought enough demonic energy to automatically turn all the CDs into Best of Queen, but Damara’s runes countered this change and the result was silence.

The drive would normally have been a short one, but it felt excruciatingly long due to the lack of music and conversation. Damara sat in the passenger seat, rhythmically tapping her sinfully red nails against the armrest. The last time she’d spoken had been as they were piling into the vehicle. “Not-Jade is head bitch today.” 

Feferi, after she’d gotten over her scrying excitement, had finally noticed the curious case of not-Jadeness affecting Jade. She pondered this silently from the back seat. The only sound coming from her direction was water sloshing from the cuttle-familiars’ travel tank sitting next to her.

On the other side of the cuttlefish sat one angelic hitchhiker, Colonel Harley, bravely soldiering on to protect his dearest granddaughter despite the fount of pure evil she had become. His current form was that of a frightened schoolboy, with dirt on his knickers and scuffed knees drawn up to his chest. The angel rocked back and forth, whimpering under the malevolent tendrils of energy stretching out from the driver’s seat.

Fifteen minutes or an eternity later, they arrived at the first Starbucks. It was a Friday. It was a good day for a latte.

\---

“Okay, this is going to sound really egotistical, but before we get down to saving the world, I just need some confirmation from our resident old-timers. Is this,” Karkat said, holding up his glowing palms, “or is this not… Jesus powers.”

“I… Oh my, yes.” Aziraphale nodded. “Yes, I would say that is indeed the power of miracles emanating from your mortal body.”

“They’re Jesus powers.”

“That is certainly one way of putting it.”

“What the fuck,” Sollux mumbled from underneath his covering of blessed-out bees. “What the fucking fuck.”

“So, for the record… That makes me Jesus.”

“You bastard.” Crowley shook his fist at Christ reborn. “I bought so much _blessed_ , literally _blessed_ curry from you and you never said a word.”

“Pfft! I said a _lot_ of words. I told you to buy Mr. Fell flowers to keep the romance alive.”

It was now Crowley’s turn to mumble incoherently to himself. “Oh bless it, oh bless it all. That’s why I always felt so… so _light_ after curry days!”

“I was right, dear. It was the _love_ in the loving rage that put the little extra flutter in your wings.”

“Don’t remind me!” Crowley hissed a bit toward the end. It was an unpleasant shock, realizing that he’d essentially been ingesting small doses of blessings over a period of years.

Aziraphale, sensing his partner’s distress, put a hand on Crowley’s shoulder. “Now, now, I’m sure the amount of _rage_ in the loving rage was enough to balance it out. Besides, I got along with Adam just fine last time. There’s no reason you can’t do the same with Karkat. They’re not like their Fathers at all.”

This was a valid point. If Karkat had truly had it out for Crowley, he’d already had ample opportunity to poison the demon. He’d never even spat in Crowley’s food.

The truth of the matter was, if one read the Bible correctly2, it didn’t matter whether it was Christ or the anti-Christ who came for one’s soul. The world was going to end either way. In theory, Christ would come for the “true believers”, and the anti-Christ would take whoever was left. In practice, it boiled down to picking teams for dodgeball. 

At the end of the metaphorical day, they were essentially the same being: one that had the potential for godhood. But while they lived on the earthly plane, Adam and Karkat were _human_ first of all. What did it matter who the Father was? If the anti-Christ could rebel against his sire, could not the Christ rebel against his? They could always just refuse to play dodgeball.

Crowley looked at Karkat, at his short stature and the scowl on his face. This was the same young man who’d kept giving him unsolicited romantic advice; the very same young man who was maybe just a little bit _too_ invested in making sure the world’s longest lasting partnership remained strong 3. Like Adam, Karkat was a being of neither Good nor Evil, but where Adam championed Creativity above all, Karkat was on the side of Love. Even demons fell under his protection as long as they loved humanity.

Eridan shifted uncomfortably as he took in this scene. He could definitely say without a doubt that he was really confused. Below was planning something nasty, and apparently they had to do something about it because the Apocalypse did not seem like a good time at all. “They” apparently included Jesus Vantas, whom everyone else had previously known. It was Eridan’s first time meeting the guy, and he felt very much out of the loop.

As soon as Karkat let out that burst of power, he’d also felt like spilling his guts to Karkat because the angry little guy suddenly seemed like a good listener, and then they could maybe gossip and talk trash mags and chick flicks or something? And they would cuddle on the couch with ice cream – mint chocolate chip – and Karkat would be there with comfort and affirmations after his latest break-up. Eridan was getting instant BFF vibes coming from him. Jesus’ powers apparently included the ability to make people want to cry on his shoulder.

“What the fucking fuck,” Sollux was still mumbling on repeat.

“What the ever-loving fuck,” Eridan agreed. “Emphasis on loving. I feel like I need to give someone a hug right now.”

“Yeah, I know what you mean.” Sollux was already hugging an armful of bees. He shuffled a little closer so Eridan could gingerly reach out to take one of the demon’s bees off his shoulders.

Eridan and the bless-drunk bee held each other in peace and joy. For once in his afterlife, he didn’t feel the least bit like smiting anyone at all. Glory bee! Honeyllujah!

\---

Damara Megido had always enjoyed being contrary. When obedience and conservatism were praised in those around her, she rebelled by flaunting her violent sexuality 4 . When her perfect English was met with disbelief, she put on the most disgusting stereotypical Japanese accent she could and sneered at the idiots who thought their prejudices had somehow been validated. Then she cursed them with infertility as a favor to the gene pool.

She was a follower of the left-hand path during her solo workings. Her magic could be considered black, though “not always evil”, she would claim. Now, however, she felt downright murderous.

Jade had always been a nag, Damara thought. She’d had to be because Damara didn’t give a shit about most things, and Feferi was too flaky to be trusted with important decisions pertaining to coven management. So Jade was manager, they’d agreed. She kept track of things by tying colored strings around her fingers, which made her look like a huge dweeb. Damara used to make fun of her for it.

The strings were gone now. Dweeby Jade was gone too. In her place was a huge nagging bitch.

“Don’t you have any Queen?” asked Jade-Niggurath. It was a taunt, for soon all would be Queen.

Damara grit her teeth to stop herself from attempting murder. In the absence of Queen, the CDs had at first stopped working, but now they were changing into other things. Green Day’s “Dancing Queen” was the first odd mash-up created once the outermost ring of the summoning circle was completed. They were driving the SUV in concentric circles around the Waterstones, stopping to surreptitiously draw the points of their runic hellgate at each overpriced chain café, thus harvesting the ambient evil of Starbucks and Costa Coffee to power the massive summoning Hell had planned. 

One would think Tadfield and its surrounding towns weren’t big enough to play host to so many strategically located coffee shops, but then one would be wrong. Jade parked in front of a Caffè Nero, the evilest coffee chain in all of England and perhaps the world.5

“All right, girls. You know the drill.”

They filed out of the bright pink vehicle and into the café, cuttlefish and Colonel Harley included. Three overpriced drinks later, the witches spread out to three out of four cardinal points, the fourth being inaccessible behind the counter. During their first group working that evening, Jade had ordered her grandfather to take up the fourth point since he was floaty and invisible to most humans, but the angel had burst into tears. _Angel tears_. Yuck.

Three out of four was good enough. They drew – or rather finger-painted – summoning runes with coffee on napkins, infusing a bit of their will to have the runes remembered by the tables the napkins were pressed against. Damara took her time doodling, idly contemplating if she could make a “mistake” without Jade noticing… But no, damn Jade for being meticulous and powerful and having these traits amplified in all the wrong ways by Eldritch possession.

“Psst! Hey, Damara! Hey hey!” Feferi, with Jake clutching onto her shoulders, slid into the seat across from Damara and set her familiars on the table. Sir Cuddlesworth and Mademoiselle Jiggybottom waved their tentacles in greeting. Feferi had the greatest witch pedigree among the members of the coven – her family having been witches for countless generations – so despite her air-headedness, she was actually a Witch Princess of sorts, and had been trained in the ways of the occult since birth. It wasn’t suspicious at all that she finished her runes so quickly. Hopefully Jade would not suspect anything other than that she wanted to socialize.

“What?” Damara asked.

“Why are we doing this? We _like_ the world. Can’t we, like, rebel or something?”

“You refuse, you get Eldritch tentacle in brain. You do it anyway in the end.”

“Aww, pooh.”

Damara huffed. Feferi was so shortsighted! “You, grandpa. Send out angel distress signal or whatever. Be sneaky. Fuck them through the back door. Surprise buttsex.”

 

\---

 

1 One very specific punishment in Hell was being put to work eternally calculating and regulating the spread of the very specific forces of evil attuned to Freddie Mercury’s voice. This task was normally assigned to deceased record label owners and/or theoretical mathematicians. In the case of the former, it was a punishment for the music industry’s greed. For the latter, well, that was just Hell’s way of discouraging any geniuses from thinking they had eternity to solve for X, where X is the secrets of the universe.

2 Not so much “the way God intended”, because, as has been explained, God likes to play games and it wouldn’t be beyond Him to intentionally mislead. The _correct_ interpretation of the Bible is the one God did _not_ intend, but is hidden there nonetheless, perhaps because He likes to give His creations a bit of a handicap for the game they’re playing completely in the dark without rules or a board or game pieces.

3 “Happily ever after” really meant _forever_ to Karkat. It meant _soulmates_ and _you will never ever even think of breaking up, do you hear me?_ Crowley got the distinct feeling that Jesus’ wrath would descend upon him if he were ever to break Aziraphale’s heart. Fortunately he also got the distinct feeling that he would be safe from all the forces of Heaven and Hell combined as long as he stayed in love. Never in over six thousand years had he considered that his taboo relationship with an angel would one day be the only thing preventing him from – and not causing him to – receive a vicious smiting. 

4 Emphasis on violent. In high school, she led her then-boyfriend’s Anime Research Club into ruin. Due to her bad influence, they picked up bike chains and crowbars and became otaku gangsters.

5 All of Caffè Nero’s beans were roasted in Battersea, south London, the evilest district in London. Contrary to what historians and etymologists will say about the origin of the name “Battersea”, it was actually named after Feferi’s great-great-great etc. grandmother, a woman remembered only as The Batterwitch, the evilest witch of all time.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Sorry it took me so long to get back to this. My project list is a mile long and I am easily distracted by just about everything. Sports anime. Buying Kinder eggs like they’re lottery tickets. YouTube. Making sure my cute little students get cute little Chinese New Year gifts with, like, stickers that look like them on the gift tag because MATCHING BABIES’ FACES TO CARTOON STICKERS IS TOTES IMPORTANT. You know, responsible adult things.


	12. [not an update, just some art and notes]

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> OMG YOU GUYS LET'S TAKE A GROUP PHOTO----!!!!!!!
> 
> FRIENDSHIP IS MAGIC------!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Sometimes I remember that I can sort of draw things...
> 
> Eh. Well. WITCHES.
> 
>  **The Secrets of Witch Fashion**  
>  \- Jade is very practical (of course). She mostly dresses in things that she can garden or science in. There are lots of t-shirts and comfy sweaters in her closet; her pants and skirts are made of more rugged materials like denim or khaki. While she likes colorful shiny things, she doesn't like wearing them except for special occasions because she's always digging in dirt or blowing shit up in a lab, and colorful shiny things tend not to be colorful or shiny after that. Iron Lass cosplay, tho. She will make an exception for Iron Lass cosplay.
> 
> \- Feferi is all about brights and pastels and SPARKLE. Sometimes she dresses to match her cuttlefish. Sometimes her cuttlefish change colors to match her. Fef also owns way too many swimsuits. She has been known to get away with wearing them as regular tops, even during the winter.
> 
> \- Damara always dresses to kill. Well, mostly just maim and neuter.
> 
>  
> 
>  **The Secrets of Witch Careers**  
>  \- Jade is a physics grad student and TA. She commutes to work via teleportation spell. Her goal is to one day science the heck out of her magic, as in figure out how her magic works in terms of quantum mechanics. She's still interested in other branches of science - chemistry, biology, and robotics in particular - so who knows what kind of hell she'll raise in the future.
> 
> \- Feferi was pre-med in college because she wanted to be a witch doctor. No, seriously, that joke kept her going for years. Then she figured she didn't really like studying all that much and became a witch nurse. This suits her much better because it's easier now for her to throw a bit of her Life magic around the hospital while she's making the rounds. No one ever suspects her when patients make miraculous recoveries. After all, she's just a nurse.
> 
> \- Damara trolls people for a living. She writes terrible-on-purpose erotica and draws the most disgusting hentai featuring the most stilted dialogue she can think of, and it is so, SO satisfying when people actually shell out money for her "artistic endeavors". She loves the fan mail and hate mail in equal measure. Idiots make her feel so alive.
> 
>  
> 
>  **The Secrets of Witch Relationships**  
>  \- Once upon a time Jade was popular with 13 year old boys on the internet. Like, they totally fought over her because she was the only girl gamer they knew. (One of those guys was Karkat.) Even though she's since moved on from those circles, just about all of Jade's relationships have been online or long distance because it's hard to find people she can open up to about her witchiness. Jade is currently dancing around asking Rose out.
> 
> \- Feferi overwhelms people with her GLITTER. Most people are too intimidated by her hyperactive niceness to ask her out. Those who get past that have to understand that Feferi doesn't do casual. She's looking for marriage and she won't go out on a date with anyone who doesn't accept 1) her cuttlefish, and 2) her mother. Buoy you do not MESS with MISS MEENAH. Miss Meenah will verbally rip you five new assholes over Skype. Now imagine what she'll do to you in person if you choose to accompany her daughter back home for the holidays.
> 
> \- Damara is still trying to get over the failure of her first and only long term relationship with her high school sweetheart. Long story short, he ended up cheating on her when he moved away for college. She tells herself she should have known better. There was no way that nerd could have made a proper gangster, nope, just one year away from her influence and he'd shacked up with that horse-faced steampunk cosplayer... Damara copes by teasing people on dating sites, giving as many jerks blue balls as she can.


	13. Chapter 13

“Where in the Queen Mum’s left teat is Tadfield?”

Aziraphale, momentarily struck dumb by the specificity more than the vulgarity of Karkat’s speech, could only sputter. Crowley was also confused, though he said what everyone was thinking: “Why the _left_ teat?” This query unfortunately – or perhaps fortunately – went unanswered.

“Oh god, is it in Wales?” Eridan asked. “I fucking hate Wales.”

“That’s your first concern? You’re dumb,” Sollux said. There was no heat in this rebuke, however, since Eridan had been colonized by bees, and anyone who was all right by the bees was all right by Sollux. “If it were in Wales,” he continued, “there’d be a whole lot more unpronounceable consonant strings in the name.”

“Why are you two so racist?”

“Everyone, please, may we return to the topic at hand?”

“It’s not racist if it’s the truth.”

“It’s not racist if they’re Welsh.”

“Shut up and listen to your elders, kids. We’re also your betters.”

“BzzzZZZzzzzZzz.”

A crushing wave of disappointment strong enough to overpower Karkat’s earlier blessing swept through the gathered beings as they realized how utterly fucked the world was if they were the ones who had to save it.

Aziraphale, being the most naturally optimistic, was the first to recover. “Adam, the Antichrist, is in Tadfield, which is in Oxfordshire, by the by. We need him on our side, and so we must get to him before our enemies. He’s a powerful ally, but I fear the demons will possess him if he isn’t warned in time.”

“Yeah, because Below is so lacking in creativity that they’re _bound_ to hit up Tadfield again,” Crowley added. “And transatlantic summoning circles? I bet they’re importing Eldritch abominations from across the pond to do the deed. _Tentacles_ , eurgh.” He gave an exaggerated shudder.

“Okay, that’s the first step,” Eridan said, “but what happens after we find this so-called antichrist? Ain’t like we know the exact coordinates of that summoning circle…”

At that moment, Aziraphale’s antique rotary phone rang.

\---

Minutes in the past, but not many…

Grandpa Harley tucked himself away between two barrels of coffee beans. He was frightened, wide-eyed and young in appearance as he struggled to tap into his angelic powers. If he ran to get reinforcements, Evil Jade would just summon him back, perhaps even trap or seal his spirit. His only recourse was to use the magic that he had no talent for. _Help_ , he thought. _Help, someone please help!_

The call connected. The other mind spoke. “Hello?”

_Erm, yes, hello. Who’s speaking?_

“Jakey-poo, is that you? Oh my stars, it must be!”

_S-sweetums? How is this possible?_

Lucia Marisol Kulikutan Lim – Harley, also known as Grandma Harley, let out a cackling whoop into her jello. The nurses tending to the patient in the next room shook their heads at each other. There had been a bet going ‘round on when sweet old “Gran” Harley, ninety-two years old, would finally lose it. Seemed like now was as good a time as any.

“It’s fate!” Lucia crowed into her reconstituted low sodium chicken broth.

_It is?_

“It is! I knew my darling wouldn’t be so easily defeated by that dastardly peanut butter!”

_…But I was, sweetie. The peanut butter defeated me quite soundly. In fact, I never detected its presence in the dessert bar._

Grandma Harley continued to insist that Grandpa Harley fought well against his peanutty archnemesis. Grandpa Harley, for his part, let her do as she willed, only occasionally giving a sound of agreement here and there. His sweetums was far on the other side of the world, after all; about as far as one could go without hitting the Pacific Ocean. She was being treated for a variety of injuries in Maple Valley General Hospital, in Washington.

The story of how Lucia Harley got to Maple Valley General is a long and convoluted one1, and one that hardly mattered. What mattered was that she listened to the voice of her Jakey-poo as best she could during his emergency long-distance call. Although she occasionally interrupted his speech with outbursts of “Do you remember when you arm-wrestled those American G.I.s for my honor?” and “Do you remember the time we went island-hopping through the Pacific?” eventually Jake was able to impress upon her the importance of alerting Mr Fell to the coming apocalypse.

“The bookstore owner?”

“Yes, sweetums. His number is –”

“The poofter?”

“…Yes.”

\---

Aziraphale didn’t know what to expect when he received the merciful phone call during his hour of greatest need. It wasn’t God on the other line, but the whole situation still smacked too much of a _deus ex machina_ for comfort. Although, where the ancient Greeks would turn a crank and load their pagan gods upon the stage, this machine gave Aziraphale a half-senile grandmother who was either truly convinced her granddaughter had been turned into calamari, or had become the middle man in a game of Metaphysical Pictionary 2. Ineffability strikes again.

“No no no,” Lucia said over the phone, “she’s not a squid! She’s a… what’s that? Speak up, Jakey! She’s a… a squid’s taken over her… That can’t be right. I’m sure Jakey meant to say Jade went to the aquarium and had a run-in with a squid or something like that. Apologies, my hearing isn’t what it used to be.”

“Mrs Harley, if you could just forget about the squid for a moment—”

“Bah! All this talk of seafood makes me long for childhood. My grandfather was a fisherman, you know, my mother’s father. My father, now, he was a crafty businessman. To gain my mother’s hand he turned grandpa’s one-boat operation into the biggest fishery in Luzon! Least it was back before the war. Now, the _war_ —”

Crowley took the phone from Aziraphale’s limp fingers. “The _war_ will be upon us once more if you don’t tell us where to find the bloody squid! Hup to it, granny!”

Grandma Harley did not get upset at Crowley’s short fuse. She had long ago accepted that youngsters got frustrated with her leisurely pace. She said, “Hmm. Well,” and paused for a bit. Then she said, “Well. Hmm.”

“ _Well?_ ”

“Well. Jakey says Jade and her girlfriends are coffee bar hopping. Now that can’t be too healthy, if you ask me. First there was bar hopping, and now caffeine overdoses at this hour? It _is_ nighttime for you over there, isn’t it? Just the other day I was catching up on the news, and I read that people had _died_ from combining caffeine with alcohol…”

Grandma Harley never noticed she’d been hung up on.

\---

Jake’s concentration shattered the moment Squid-Jade stopped before his hiding place. She towered over him, looking mildly bemused. “You’re far more trouble than you’re worth, you know. I’d discorporate you for disobedience if you were, well, _corporate_ to begin with. Ah, it’s such a shame!”

Jake sniffled a bit, but sucked his tears back in at Jade’s not-at-all-subtle “Imma fuck you up” glance. From behind her, Feferi gave him a secret thumbs up.

\---

1 It involved a visit to the Egberts – her son-in-law and grandson, a bookshelf, a ladder, and an unabridged copy of Jonathan Sassacre’s Heartening Text of Scientific Sensibility and Theoretical Postulates. Unbeknownst to Lucia “Gran” Harley, this was the same fate that had earlier befallen grandson John Egbert’s paternal grandmother, the late Jane “Nanna” Egbert. Sassacre’s text was a cursed family heirloom.

2 Angels Playing “Telephone” On The Telephone Edition.


End file.
